Guild Warfare Feedback

The main problem the game has right now, because everything is consentual nothing can happen in this game. Noone will fight except under RP fancy rules "we dont hurt each other" agreements.

You cannot kill the person that is "stealing" your resource nodes, but you can avoid it by playing solo. You cannot declare war on a guild trash talking... well you can play friends online. I like the idea of the mechanics at the core, but right now we create a giant hugbox without any conflict and only "roleplayed" player interactions... That may appear to some parts of the community, but has certainly nothing to do with a spiritual offspring of Ultima Online.

This is no virtual world so far. Too many artificial boundaries.
We need to implement systems to promote conflict, alliances and politics which are a necessity for the longevity of the project. The Story will never be enough.

This is a small development team... AAA studios cannot provide content enough... The players need to do it. They have done a fine job so far for Roleplayers... Now give something for the people that like guild politics, economy and warfare.

 

well this game cannot change the consensual pvp. It is part of the foundation. I do agree with you though that there needs to be more incentive to pvp and for people to flag. I disagree with the RP aspects because in MHO both pvp and rp have been put on the sidelines and the rp we do have consists of people listening to the radio and dancing on the tables. Its an online chat room, not role play. We have different playstyles and for mine i need the RP mechanics that I advocate for. Now guilds can flag pvp and be freely attack-able if they choose to. They can still war as open pvp during guild wars. I do not mind the instances myself and actually find them preferable to the people that mastered the server line pvp and exploit the lag crossing back and forth.

 

The original concept of flagging for PVP was to say "I want to play this game by a different set of rules". The ability to transition to and from this state, already requiring only a visit to the Oracle, has become even easier with the blue healer mechanism, where you become flagged for PVP by attacking, and lose the flag by leaving the scene.

I'm not sure what the intention of the devs is there. Perhaps the thinking was that more people would be lured into PVP. I see the same thinking with the guild warfare mechanism. I don't think that is the most likely result. More likely I think is that existing unflagged PVPers will abuse this facility to ambush a rapidly dwindling number of players prepared to openly flag PVP.

Perhaps the choice to play PVP should be more of a long term playstyle commitment, and less of a combat tactic. I'll leave that for the PVP players to work out though - I'm strictly PVE. Just don't involve me in your solution.

 

Womby, I agree with you. The oracle should be the only way to flag for pvp. That and entering a pvp zone. The Blue ambusher should not be in game. I also do not think the guild leader should flag everyone in the guild, without a way to opt out. I do think though that this will take care of itself in the future with new guilds because they are not grandfathered in to the pre guild warfare implement. This only really affects the guilds already formed. In the future people will be able to ask before they join the guild if they are going to be a guild warfare guild.

 

For SotA, would you have a guild war like A) or like B) ?


A)


B)

 

uhm..... is this a trick question?


although i have actually experienced what you are saying.
mostly i think it has to do with the larger community and the prevailing attitude toward the rougher end of pvp.
that may change when the game goes live...
on the other hand these are the folks currently giving input on how pvp ought to be run

 

both. one for rp and one for hard core

 

ahhh Rav!!!

i have to like that solution a WHOLE bunch!!!

 

After reading the responses to this thread, I have resigned myself that SotA is going to be my secondary game that I can jump into once in a while. It is shaping up to be a nice mix of classic Ultima RPG games and Second Life. The social community puts on some cool events and I believe at the end the story line will be a good throw back. As far giving me that sense of being n edge when I played and being with guild members who were very tight knit because we needed to be in order to survive will be missing. Witcher 3 is a great RPG but even that I could only play for a couple hours a week at best because frankly there was nothing to put me on the edge of my seat. I know when I invested a few house payments worth of money that this would not be the next UO, but I did hope that we would have the tools to foster guild rivalries, epic battles for zone control, and the like created by the players.

I would scrape the Guild War system instead of making changes mentioned in this thread. Any system that allows players to opt out is just not worth the time to code it. Perhaps an Order/Chaos system is the way to go where individuals can pick a side. None of the large PvP guilds that I still talk with are even interested in SotA, so guild competition will be at a minimum.

 

I started a thread on factions and hopefully Chris sees it. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...will-shroud-have-factions-npc-factions.42879/ Other than that I tend to agree, this game needs some love for pvp and the PVE people need to give the pvp people a little break. When I say that I mean there should be some full loot zones and such. There should be some control points that are pvp. Make the resources pvp based so that pve does not feel left out.

 

In what way do the PVE people need to give the PVP people a break? If you want full loot of people flagged for PVP, then go for it. I don't care. Provided there is a choice between a PVP instance and a PVE instance, then I also have no objection to providing PVP control points for those flagged PVP. In no way do I as a PVE player want to tell you as a PVP player what rules should apply to you. I only care what rules apply to me as a strictly PVE player. Naturally since I won't be engaged in PVP then if there is full loot for all players I'll only need worry about being looted by NPCs. As long as there is a strictly PVE way to access all the same resources or loot that PVP players have access to, then I have no complaints. I'm not convinced however that PVP players need any special rewards for doing what they enjoy. They don't charge PVP players extra to play the game, so we are all equal here.

 

I don't think that's a fair assumption... It's not like there are two games and each plays its own. PVP is a part of the game, PVE is another. To level up and gather experience PVP players will be required to do PVE and quests because that's the element of the game that gives them that reward, so every PVP player need to do some PVE as a mandatory activity. Forcing anyone to PVP is out of the question, but i think some exclusive resources/rewards may be in place. After all PVE players will kill bosses and get whatever resource they drop (i suppose dragons will drop dragon scales, for instance).

Want dragon scales? do PVE - Want whatever resource/reward PVP gives? do PVP. Sounds kind of logical, doesn't it?.

 

The game cannot exist without PVE. Killing other players will not get you ore, cotton, fish, etc. Without PVE there is no quest line and no economy. The game can, however, exist without PVP. It follows then that PVE is something that everyone does at least to some extent, and PVP is an add-on that not everyone does.
Therefore if you have special loot or resources that are exclusively available to PVP players, you are singling out and rewarding a minority faction in the game.
That is not a good idea. Those items should be available with comparable difficulty to all players. Maybe PVE players must first defeat a troll who guards the entrance to a cave, or something like that.


The only reason you would give exclusive rewards to PVP players is if you are attempting to bribe PVE players to try PVP. That is an exercise doomed to failure, because
1. It will cause resentment amongst many PVE players
2. It could turn experimenters permanently off PVP when they are slaughtered
3. Hard core PVE-only players cannot be tempted, threatened or cajoled

 

@Womby
What gives you resources is gathering. You can gather in PVP zones. The economy part is true, because the game it's designed that way (you could have a game with a PVP based economy and PVP quest line). The same goes for the mandatory PVE activity and optional PVP activity... it is by design. However i still don't see the comparison as adequate; i'd say it go best if you compare High end PVE with PVP; both are some kind of end content, and both are optional branches of the game (some PVP players won't kill bosses, and some PVE players wont engage in PVP ever).

Since doing PVE and killing bosses will grant players some kind of rare resource (at least i hope so!) it seems logical that engaging in PVP activity have some kind of reward (Let's remove the special for the sake of the argument ) exactly in the same way PVE players that lurks into the troll cave after defeating him should expect a reward. There's no need to have "exclusive rewards" but i think something PVP related seems more logical than give a PVP player dragon scales, for instance.

 

I will agree that there is no need to give PVE players a reward that is only useful in PVP. That aside however, if we treat the troll slaying PVE player and the triumphant PVP player as equivalent (and we probably should - there are plenty of strictly PVE players with very high stats), then in general I think they both should have access to the same rewards.

 

A needed clarification... I said PVP related, not only useful in PVP .

It's true that we can give them both the same rewards, as i said in my previous post (dragon scales to the mightiest PVPer), but that can soothe some concerns in the same way it may raise different ones, like "why is the PVP player getting the same resources as we PVE players do? dragon scales belongs to dragons". I have my preferences but rewards could go one way or another for sure, and both of them can have their ups and downs (mostly because it's a delicate subject here, not because it's something impossible to balance, imho).

Regarding your Edit of the previous post i strongly disagree.
1.- PVE has rewards, PVP may have some as well (the same or different ones). PVE players shouldn't be resented because each is getting rewarded for their playstyle; you can always trade your high end PVE rewards with the mighty PVPer (assuming a different reward scenario).
2.- Or it could hook them up as they fight a couple of fights and start to get the hang of it. Both scenarios are possible, so it's not necessarily bad.
3.- You're saying that because you've never seen my deadly and PVP exclusive bouquet of beautiful roses made of delicious chocolate! Doesn't it sound tempting, threatening and cajoling? . Getting serious again, rewards are not designed to be tempting, they just rewards. You get dragon scales because you killed a dragon, so you get <whatever> because you won a guild war, or who knows what else because PVP activities are not specifically detailed. If a PVE player feels drawn to a PVP reward he can try, or he can buy it; same options the PVP player has if he wants to get some kind of resource from bosses.

As i said before, consensuality should be kept, but having shinies on PVP (once again, different or the same as PVE) is not forcing anyone. Just rewarding success of the same magnitude in different fields.

 

Back on topic (this thread is about guild warfare, after all), I notice that some object to the idea that a guild member could opt out of a guild war. As a compromise, how about giving guild members the option to resign from the guild if it engages in guild warfare. After all, under the current system a guild leader could promise no PVP, then change his mind, allowing a strictly PVE player to be flagged PVP without his consent - against the publicly stated policy of the game developers. Since guild leaders are not forced by the game to stick to their stated policy with regard to guild warfare, then if they engage in guild warfare, the next time a guild member logs on he or she should be given the option to leave the guild.

Allowing associations between guilds (one claiming to be PVP, the other claiming to not be PVP) does not on its own solve the above problem. There is no game mechanic to enforce those claims.

An additional, in my view required feature would be to support two types of guild: those that can engage in guild warfare, and those that can't. Players can then join a non-GW guild with the assurance that the game will never allow them to be engaged in guild warfare. In that case there would be no need to allow people to resign if a guild war is declared, since it will always be fully consensual.

 

Ya, basically all I am saying is to throw a bone out there for pvp. There needs to be some kind of incentive to do it. Thats all. I just used those as examples for incentives . I in no way want to diminish anything pve, but to try to find some way to bring pvp players to the game also. I do not want to derail this thread anymore like you just stated so I will leave it at that.

 

Great points, thanks for sharing