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As far as the merchandise, I do plan to add new things as time progresses. The initial items were mostly intended to give people some way to mitigate some of the damage/provide better healing to those who don't necessarily have a ton of artifacts. Razmael was awesome and made those two charms able to be used anywhere, so they could be great outside of Vortex too.
__People aren't busy doing other things. They just lack a reason to play.__
When the Vortex was first launched, we had plenty of people visiting. People were interested to take a look, and they entered to explore and bash. This tells us something important - it is not that people are inactive and busy with other things, they just need a reason to enter. At the beginning, that incentive is curiosity.
But curiosity runs out, so what is next? Let's talk about rewards versus risks.
__Current rewards in the Vortex__
The current rewards in the Vortex are 'not bad'. The xp is good. The gold quest gives around 3k in one clearing. Some people want to get the minipet turtle. I've personally gotten the chaos stallion, and it is okay. The shield charm is not bad. When it procs, it is a nice feeling to see a couple of hits miss you. Not something that makes you a God. Just something nice to have.
But is this good enough?
__The risk of 'Probable death'__
The trouble with the Vortex is that for most people, they risk 'probable death'. Now, 'probable death' is a high standard. 'Probable death' is akin what you face when you go to a lesser as a non-end-gamer. You go in expecting to die. But as a non-end-gamer, you go to the lesser fight anyway because there is a chance that you gain more experience than you get from hours bashing.
This is 'probable death'. This is the reality that most people face, especially if they are non-combatants. To a lesser but still significant extent, the average combatant.
__A comparison between risk and reward__
We are at a stage where curiosity has run out, and what is left is a mismatch between risk and reward. People aren't going to enter the Vortex to face 'probable death', when all they get is something 'good', 'not bad', 'nice'.
The perks need to blow your mind. The perks need to be significantly attractive to overcome the high chance of turning up empty.
As a practical example, a non-exhaustive list of things that are needed:
- Charms that proc more often.
- Gold drops that are at least 4-5 times the current.
- XP that is at least 4-5 times the current.
- Mini-pets that are a bit more unique.
- Technique scrolls.
- Little stat/health/mana boosts that last a limited time.
- Little trophies and souvenirs that people can take away and go 'I've been to the Vortex and I got this awesome t-shirt'.
Don't be stingy. Don't worry that there is suddenly going to be a mad disparity between people who enter the Vortex and not. Make the perks attractive enough, and people will -fight- one another to deny each other, or claim them. The net effect on the game will not be all that destabilising.The more people there are in the Vortex at once, the greater the rewards should scale. If there are five people in the Vortex at once, the rewards are greater than if there are only two.
But there is a catch. When you kill someone else in the Vortex, you gain a buff that scales up according to the number of people in the Vortex when you secured the kill - if your kill occurred when five people were in the Vortex, the buff gives more than if your kill occurred when there were two people.
If you get killed, you get a negative buff that bars you from enjoying any of the buffs for a period of time.
Now, this would introduce a prisoner's dilemma'esque scenario: If you cooperate and not kill one another, and bash/quest within, you get rewarded as there are more people in the Vortex.
However, as that number grows, you will be tempted to default first and kill the other guy - who knows, he may be thinking the same thing. As that number grows, so does the temptation to default. You will be on the look out for betrayal, and the only way to eliminate that risk and fear is to betray the other guy first. And profit.
The idea, ultimately, is to create tension between cooperation and competition strategies.
It gets quite tiring to have the same teams dictating every single conflict in the game. I enjoy the non-partisan element of the Sect of Blades, for example, where there aren't any hard feelings for killing someone on 'the same side'.
In the context of the mini-game I described above, sides would place a dampener on the tension dynamic - you're obliged to cooperate with some people, and betray others. It limits choice, which is the basis of the dilemma.
Furthermore, dilemmas and temptation work best when it is within the mind of an individual. If groups can exist without a chance of internal betrayal, the game would eventually tend toward herd mentality and an invariable decision to kill the other side.
Maximising individuality and the element of choice is crucial to the proposed dynamic.
...Now my dream area is one where you're assigned a new identity on entry and factions not tied to tether/alignment. You put on the red masque and lead the charge, given the name Wilburt. Fighting Clifford in a blue bandana, you kill him only to find out that you just #rekt your GM. Oops.
Right now, I do feel frustrated when only people from the same side enter, for the same reasons you mentioned.
Would LOVE that sort of anonymous arena mechanic though, whether it is implemented in this mini-game or the next one.
My issue is the xp gain and benefits from it. Yes, it is open PK so I have to be PK ready ALL THE TIME. Which is all well and good. However, the main mobs give the same amount of xp as Volcano and Tcanna, which is around 6k apiece on average. I don't feel that the mobs being uncrittable and only worth the same xp as Tcanna/Volcano is all that fair when I can get jumped at any point in time. The xp/min rate is drastically low and isn't all that worth it when you're constantly looking over your shoulder and you can bash tcanna for the same xp WITHOUT having to worry about someone killing you. Personally, if the xp was better, I might bash there more, along with some fair others.
However, I would like to point out that Lim's posts pretty much hit the nail on the head for it overall. Still a great area though.
I am not a PK fan but I go there just to bash and support the Aztob, as it is fun to combine an RP reason to bash. The only thing I think should be changed is to allow crits on the mobs. As the novelty wears off i find myself going less to the vortex and more to other crit allowed mobs.
If they are crit friendly, the area will be cleared out in 5 minutes, and that means less play time/chance for player - player interaction in the vortex. It would be unenjoyable for both basher and pvper.
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
I remember when the Fracture first came out, we had parties of one side or another running through it, as like a group activity. Sure, there was always the chance of PK, but at least you wouldn't have a giant bullseye on you the moment you stepped into the zone.
I have a log of who goes into the zone, so it does seem to get fair usage. I can consider removing the announcements perhaps, but I am unsure if that'll be changed or not. It'll likely be something out of my hands, but we'll see.
I do have plans to add some new minipets. I've added one so far. I am open to suggestions on types of merchandise people would like to see.
When it comes to bashing mobs in the Vortex, the xp ranks are as follows:
Treants/demon mobs (crittable): ~5k each/30 mobs total
Normal guard mobs (non-crittable): ~10k each/40 mobs total/20 each side
Reinforcement mobs (non-crittable): ~13k each/30 mobs total/15 mobs each side
Now, take into consideration Tcanna, Xaanhal or Tiyen, three of the most easily accessible areas in the game. Each Tcanna and Tiyen mobs are generally worth ~5k apiece and they're crittable and there's plenty more of them to bash. A hell of alot of more them to bash. Xaanhal mobs are worth ~4k, also crittable and stand roughly at about 100 mobs through the instance and upper levels. Now, when you are bashing for speed/xp/gold, you're more likely to go to these three places because it has a higher payout in a shorter time frame.
When I say 'buff' I don't mean buff the mobs to make them uber difficult so only a demi-god can kill them. I mean, buff the xp rates and gold drops. Make people actually WANT to go there during high peak hours. I can (and typically do) play Aetolia for 14 hours straight and never see anyone enter the Vortex. Why? Because its not totally worth it. As a heavy basher, there is no reason to go into the Vortex because the xp rate doesn't outdo the speed of which I bash, nor the risk I take when I go in there. If you wanna make it viable, make the gold quests a bit more free and have the mobs drop gold as well as the fingers. Likewise, if you did such a thing, increase how many mobs there are instead of just about 100 mobs in the entire area. Make people WANT to bash there during high time hours and not when there's only like 10 people online with half of them being AFK.
Alternatively, if you don't want to increase the xp rate, then make an item like a charm that allows you to crit mobs anyway, for like 4 hours or so. And like in the previous paragraph, increase how many mobs are there. I mean, realistically speaking, no organization is going to just send out 20 guards to defend their turf.
Option 3 would be to do something along the lines of both previous stated options. Again, make the mobs relevant. I will not argue that people don't go in there as there is some decent lore there and a few gold quests for those who don't like to spend 50 hours bashing to get 100k gold or something. However, I can't help but feel if it was made more worth while, it would be a much more active place.
In regards to the global announcement, its an open PK area. Just like the Fracture and just like the Hunting Grounds. That's just part of the risk of going in there to receive such awesome rewards. You're SUPPOSED to have a bulls-eye on your back when you go enter these areas. Because you don't just enter it and go 'la di da, no one knows I'm here because there's no message anymore. I can do what I want.' No. That's not how open PK areas work. Don't think you can stand up to someone who comes in to kill you? Grab a wing man. This will not only encourage player interaction, but it also forces you to be like 'Hey, maybe I should learn how to fight too'.
Now, onto adding more npcs. That's a possibility, but you have to consider how many actual npcs there are in the zone. In total, there are 310. There are 86 (20 guards, 10-15 of each other npc depending on which side you are looking at) per side of sentient npcs. There are 15 reinforcements that can switch sides, so they are variable. All of these sentient npcs, save for maybe the warriors, have a chance to drop fingers. Other NPCS - 10 treants, 10 turtles. 25 chaos worms that npcs summon, 11 angels that get summoned. That gives either side at least 100 npcs to kill for appropriate quests. There are roughly 67 demons spread throughout the zone that either side can kill. Total gold possible from quests on either side is near 7k. Plus, all of the quests also give xp - not a ton, mind you, but something. It's not unusual numbers for npcs, however.
Lastly, concerning the critting. The humanoid npcs were set to be non-crittable to simulate it being more like combating other players. There was something in the works to increase damage on the npcs, but it's been delayed and so it hasn't been released yet. It is a thing, however, but I won't go into more specifics on it. There are actually several things in the works that have just been on the backburner because of the other stuff being released right now. They will happen, though, at some point in the future. I may consider a crit charm in the interim, since it may not be as hard to code, so we'll see. I'll run it by who I need to and see if it'd be worthwhile on a PK area like this.
The rewards are not worth the effort and the risk. That is the main problem. I don't just mean exp/gold, either. You don't get either of these from Fracture, and more people still do Fracture than Vortex.
The type of person who plays Aetolia and would like the rewards in Vortex are typically not the type of person that can handle the risk. The only reason I've ever went in there and tried to get fingers is to buy @Callidora one of the baby turtles. Obviously she really wants this turtle minipet, but isn't a pker, so she has no interest in going in there herself.
When you do Hunting Grounds, you're getting solid, useful, meaningful items. When you do Fracture you're getting ylem mists if you have Glyph, and you're getting massive amounts of ylem for your city which leads to credits.
When you do Shattered Vortex, you get a baby turtle and a mount. These are neat, unique things, too. They just aren't practical enough to bother with for most PKers and the risk is too high for non-PKers.
I think this has been said before, but I think this is the real problem, not the exp/gold/mobs. I made a system in the Indorani to reward participation, but it fell apart and no longer saw use when I left the Secretary position.(My bad).
+--------------------------- CHANGELOG ENTRY #1067 ----------------------------+
| Entered by: Dristin Date: 2015/10/22 16:26:05 |
+--------------------------------- CHANGE ------------------------------------+
Several Vortex changes. Slaying the NPCs no longer changes which side has extra reinforcement
warriors. Quests only will now affect those extra reinforcements. Both sides now accept treants and
turtles at one of their questgivers, you'll have to figure out who. Ayeli and Junal will now hide
when their opposing side is 'ahead', IE, have more reinforcement warriors than the other. Their
merchandise has been split up and new merchandise is being planned. Because of the more recent
events, some Sciomancer and Ascendril NPCs have been added. Monks have been renamed specifically to
be Sentaari monks.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+