SoS PvP !!!!!!!!!!!

SotA doesn't reach 1/10th of EVE in any major aspect. Compared to EVE, SotA is yet to become a factor. If SotA wants to be sandboxy, it would literally be dumb not to learn from EVE which is by far the most successful full loot sandbox mmorpg and one of the most successful mmorpgs overall. It is a 10y old game. Nothing lasts forever even tho EVE surely has at least 10 more years ahead. Not something I would dare say about SotA yet.

 

I am sure this will get lost in this long thread and the devs will never see it. However, the issue some in my guild are having with flagging for open PvP is they don't want to participate in open (non-consensual) pvp while using our main guild tag. They want to be in our pvp sub-guild called Jade Outlaws when flagged for open PvP. This brings up a problem. If they switch over to the pvp sub-guild they will then be missing out on all the messages in our main guild chat. The proposal to fix this would be an "alliance" chat tab added to the game. And to keep things from getting out of hand Port could set it such that there can be only one allied guild added to the alliance chat.

 

WHich may be due to the fact the SotA also wants to tell a story and wants to offer many quests. It is hard balancing a sandbox and a story with quests. Especially with PvP and full loot. No one wants to be attacked while trying to complete a quests, imho...

 

No. I actually meant "leveling curve"... as in, it's steep in the sense that you level up quickly and it makes a greater impact early on and then it's slower with less of an impact the further you progress.

Meaning someone who plays a little is farther behind someone who plays just a bit more even if it's just a 2-5 level difference, compared to two people who both GMed skills but are 10-20 levels apart.

 

~Faction Tag~
~Faction Friends List~

============================================

I'd like to say within my comments of the over all talking points here within this thread, "that I haven't yet to hear any original ideas". That fact disappoints to me even from myself included.

Bringing our SOTA up to the level of other games is fine, but we need to do more, and we'd value most, if it's actually different than other games.

If our SOTA is going to be just the same as <fill in the blank> "then we need to call it that name" instead of calling it SOTA and quit trying fooling ourselves about it or hiding the facts ...

~Time Lord~

 

That's not really true, the impact curve isn't that sharp- 20 levels is going have a bigger impact than 5 levels at pretty much every party of the curve. Meanwhile, I'm only a couple hours behind you in leveling and the two GMs are weeks apart.

 

It means that one cannot participate in PvP unless he/she grinds more... the "couple of hours" is still a barrier for new players. Not because they can't grind, but that they SHOULD grind before participating in PvP...

At the end-game the differences don't/won't really matter that much. Because it's an ever-moving target, you might as well grind until you're GM.

 

What if instead of a static faction like "shadowlords", but rather having specific objectives with time restraints? Or at least as an alternative pvp experience.

In a scenerio where avatars are transported into a zone with other avatars NOT of their choosing to cause them to quickly assemble into a group, agree on a leader or leaders and the objective and terrain is randomized so that the groups have no clue which objective or resources will be available before it starts? Like some kind of immortal challenge maze with teams trying to reach the same goal or in some cases one group tries to protect something and the others are trying to take it ... Maybe even something requiring ingenuity not just battlefield tactics, like keeping track of markers or events while staying alive in the confusion (dying can prevent a player from seeing certain things too and they cannot message a party) so having a party member stay alive through out the event might be nessisary to solve it... some kind of test for the avatars and their powers of immortality.

Not sure how that playes out in a lore way, crazy mages from ages past or whatever made a challenge or test .... or some sort of blood sport that was watched by those crazy mages to bet on and watch the people who submitted to it or whatever.

 

~The Fellowship Cult Faction Model on Steroids~

For all of our readers and PvPers who don't know about "The Fellowship Cult Project", I'm not going to get into that here. Instead, I'm going to present an adapted for public model of one of the fellowship's projects. Kick it around, and see if it "SOTA'fies" what we all are pointing toward achieving in a unique way.

Come inside the fiction...
====================================================================================================

The Oracle wishes us to work out our own problems and not have them effecting our NPC Novian's lives. "2 Faction tags are created, a faction friend's list is created for the faction player, and the wheels of her reasoning begin turning"...

1) There are only 2 factions which can be joined by asking the Oracle to place you in the one you choose. The Oracle could set a limit to how many are in each faction, by not allowing either faction to outgrow the other by (for instance) 20%. By visiting the Oracle, the faction player could "rise" within faction rank from the amount of killing opposing faction members and how much gain the player has made by overtaking a control point.

2) The lower ranking members will always be subject to being suspected of being spies which creates intrigue, because if those player characters have not "risen", then they truly may be spies.

3) The sinister nature of the Oracle...
At her whim, she may decide to de-guild all lower ranking faction members or even higher ones, causing those players to have to revisit the Oracle to enter a chosen faction once more;
(or as an option, only allow those player characters to join the other faction based on a timer)
(there are many things that can become hidden within the Oracle's reasoning to base her judgments on which could become a source of wonder to those who play within "her" factions)
De-guilding a player from a faction could deepen the player's relationship with the Oracle. This is where passion and frustration can play it's part as the player "quests" forward deeper into their factional life.

4) Joining a faction and attaining a rank level gained grants that character the ability to have a low level boost, as if having used a COTO, yet of a shorter duration of time than the COTO.

5) Draw a map of the control points all across our map and a war is created.

Many are looking for an in game mechanic to be created. This is all from the game mechanics we already have, with the addition of the Oracle's control and evaluation of the player, this I believe SOTA'fies such a faction war of conflict.

~Time Lord~?'

 

I would have to go back to the point in one of the videos the devs put out......two groups come to a certain area where whoever conquers holds that area for whatever reason, city, resource, monsters etc.. until another group comes in and takes it over, Guilds could do this, we wouldn't have to call it faction vs faction. you'll eventually lose control of a point based on time when guild members can be on actively, to another guild that may be active at times when your is not. reward woul be the spoils of that area temporarily. theres one form of PVP i would probably enjoy. the risk and the reward would be there.

its not straight up PVP, but close. It would also just be in that scene, so when you left you would go back to whatever you were before entering it.

 

heres some examples of why you would want to hold that scene. As mentioned above.

Monsters drop more gold and items

PVP would probably run rampant there

if your guild is holding it, it wont be one on one PVP

Better resource gathering

special resource while holding it.

(the greatest thing about this is everyone has to go to sleep sometime, and since its an international game another guild is just getting up to start playing. No scene would be able to be held forever )

 

One difference between faction and guild warfare is factions rally behind a storyline element. You basically have an NPC guildmaster. In guild warfare you have a real person leadind the guild and might habe different standards between different guilds. Factions would have standards and loner players that do not like guilds could rally around a storyline army.

 

Makes sense but i have never really been involved in factions, especially when you have guilds, i dont see a need for factions. if your a loner player you could get with other loner players and form a temporary bond i guess. Factions always seemed to be questionable when you could just ally with other guild and build "a Faction".

 

ya the factions could be a bit different but i like them to be some what static. I might see the large cities as different factions. Or have the different races as factions.

 

Some PvPers do like to fight other PvPers. These sorts are often found advocating for objective based PvP or for consensual flag based PvP where it is difficult to turn your flag off once it is on. There are some noncon fans for this too that like to imagine themselves as bandit and murderhobo hunters.

But by and large, nonconsensual full loot pvp leads to games being filled with roving bands of players picking off weak targets and running from anything resembling a challenge. I am a big fan of risk/reward scenarios where we put bigger payouts in PvP zones and have partial random inventory loss when killed. But full loot and non-con scenarios usually end up being REALLY BIG RISK, very little reward and end up creating toxic environments that cater to a very specific player type and thus competes directly with the other more polished games offering that environment.

 

I like time lords idea. You go to the oracle and flag for factions. But if it is to one sided then you have to join a diffetent faction

 

Guilds and their warfare have all two things in common which marginalizes their power within having something hand crafted for them and that is that they are ego and member number based which destroys anyone else's fun or way of achieving within any such conflict. "It's all about them" and not about all of us, "unless we succumb to their will".



Personally, "I'd rather trust a robot"
"No dom has anything over me"
~Time Lord~

 

You see this is why I ask myself why PvPers here want to fight those who are not interested in PvP. Those who would not flag themselves for PvP but want to gather resources in some scenes. Those who are not prepared for PvP, don't train for PvP... Why is it that PvPers want to have those players for combatants and not those who flag themselves for PvP and are prepared and trained for it?

 

So the oracle can serve as the medium of protection and unity, and also the medium we use to divide principles based upon our choice to resolve our perceived conflict....

What about the stellar conflict especially the moon?

Factions in a broad sense might reflect a universal conflict as much as an international one. So perhaps or"faction affiliation" could possibly be changed every lunar cycle instead of like other games where the faction is a place to gain an identity, the factions could instead be a part of our greater internal identity and each avatar contains all the various faction caracteristics light dark good evil, all the elements or whatever....

So perhaps there could be an experience that presents the cataclysm symbolicly into a battle field so that factions represent all that came crashing into one moon somehow finding its place in the stellar ballance, which is even mirrored recursively in a fractal nature throughout all things in every way...

So that our factions and the wars thereof represent a force and the factions who gain power that force also becomes dominant in nature causing elementals or characteristics of that faction to become dominant for a time giving members of that faction some sort of benifit since they identify with that power and the opposite faction is at a disadvantage for that time till the collision occurs again...

then there could be a ballance faction to try to keep the powers in proper alignment so that no side has any advantage over another and they can switch sides as neded through the conflict to make up for it.

All just acting out as avatars what has transpired on a vibrational level or whatever, in the ripples and echos of what transpired at the cataclysm.

???

 

Elder Scrolls Online tried this. It flopped. Zenimax and Bethesda have more than an order of magnitude more in resources than Lord British and crew, so this is a pretty settled issue unless someone has some secret sauce to make it work.