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Orrery Introduction
Rhyot
Bloodloch
Alright, for starters, I'm absolutely loving the new Orrery combat. It gives people something to fight for beyond just ylem. Also gives people something to do beyond emote-throwing or idling for days on end. So this thread is to 1) provide thanks for something to do and 2) provide criticisms.
My only criticism is that you should change the 'open pk' rules to INCLUDE anyone holding a globe. Reason being you are essentially being a carrier for a globe so your side can "win" and as such should be able to hunted down and killed for doing so.
Other than that, great implementation.
My only criticism is that you should change the 'open pk' rules to INCLUDE anyone holding a globe. Reason being you are essentially being a carrier for a globe so your side can "win" and as such should be able to hunted down and killed for doing so.
Other than that, great implementation.
7
Comments
Which quickly leads to people going SCREW THIS.
.. the hours are -way- too long, as is. Maybe twice a day for a fixed time period, rather than the full 72 hours? Right now it's too easy for people with a lot of time on their hands to gather orbs and dump it all to their side while no one's around that can successfully contest them (see: Trikal).
I get the argument, but it seems to me more time actually reduces the pressure on people to make themselves available for the entire thing, rather than increasing it, because it means they don't have to suspend part of their lives to be involved.
Because I feel like I might not be very clear, let me give an example: If the window for influencing the orrery is only say 8 hours long, it means that people are, perhaps not forced, but pressured to make themselves available during that eight hours.
For those of us in weird time zones, jobs, families, other committments (which I'll bet is 99.9% of players in one form or another) we can't necesarily commit to just buckling down during that period.
On the other hand, having a period of time a' la the originally intended 72 hours, means that people can participate as they're available. They don't have to worry about missing what's going on, because there's enough time for everyone to get involved. Further, it gives plenty of time for more pvp, conflict, and the back and forth between which side is winning.
I'm also inclined to agree with @rhyot. I'd like to be able to attack anyone holding a globe, it gives another option for trying to stifle or slow the enemy team when they have a good foothold at the orrery.
Just my 10c on the issue.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
It'll basically be 'how many people can we get for the last 12 hours? Okay, we'll get it spirit infused.'
So in essence, a noncom CAN still support their side, they might just need to have a few guardians in order to do it. Opening up PK to globe holders isn't going to (shouldn't) stop noncoms from participating.
Perhaps put a timer on the globes that makes them respawn after being held for more than a few minutes from pick-up without being infused. Could even let them stay "charged up". Perhaps give them a random chance to respawn if they change hands, so you have to be the one holding them the entire time to ensure they're not lost. Perhaps make the damage increase more drastically if you're holding a globe of the opposing tether?
There are lots of options other than involving non-PKers in PK and still letting everyone participate. I'm not saying my ideas are the best. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways.
edit: And yeah, while I'm all for letting everyone play, this IS a pk event and you're open to get dropped as soon as you walk into the orrery. So it's still going to involve you potentially dying, and 'let the noncomms help' is less important here imo than balancing the obvious pk mechanic. I mean, RP ballroom dancing doesn't get PK components added to help the comms out, right?
And considering most events that include rp usually include a combat part as well, that argument doesn't really hold. Skythrone had both, and we saw there how impossible it was for noncoms to get involved. I don't think there's any harm in letting noncoms introduce themselves in a safer way.
I think it would be good to let anyone holding an opposing sides globe to be open pk, no matter where. It makes it a lot harder to just hoard them all and play keep away, or I mean hey, if you're looking for combat it's a perfect way to get yourself some enemies to fight!
We have had two PK events this year, those being the Three Widow War and this Orrery event. The rest have all been either exclusively centered around RP or included some minor bashing elements, so I don't see why these combat-oriented events should be tailored to include newbies. PK'ers need events, too, and they often get the short end of the stick.
Aetolia's combat system is one of the main talking points in attracting new players and retaining veterans, and simply witnessing the high activity gives newbies something to strive towards. More than half the lessons and credits spent in game are towards combat-centered items and skills, so it would be good for the game overall if we kept our PK events centered more around PK.
I understand you like to be more inclusive with the game's current player base, but we've lost a lot of PK'ers because of a lack of PK events. They get bored, and watering down PK events might not be enough to retain them.
In this case, holding on to the globes was painful as unicorns, but it was worth it, feeling like I was playing "hot potato" and being involved without having to fight. I probably wouldn't have managed the entire time, which would have reset the globe again and allowing the other side to grab it if they found it first. The globes didn't reset their damage when changing hands, meaning you couldn't hand it over to someone else without possibly killing them in the process.
Personally, I had a lot of fun trying to figure out interesting tactics during the short time I was helping out there in the end. I did not have the skills to conceal, so I didn't do that, but I came up with a different idea. I don't think it is reasonable to expect five people of varying strengths and abilities in PK to go up against the top 6-8 PKers on the opposing side and hope to gain anything, but I think it is quite reasonable for them to try to find other ways to not just hand over the victory. Let's face it, we've all been involved in stalling tactics when it comes to preventing the other side at Major foci. It's a legit tactic if you don't have the numbers to truly contend. You move things up, you make preparations in case you get an opening and you try to make sure the other side don't get the upper hand.
EDIT: As for the "world wide" RP events, we just got done with one. Skythrone shards. We also had Yvalamon emerge. There have also been plenty of smaller, guild-centric events that happened in the game that were tailored to smaller groups.
If the suggestions are made, and go through, to pull this one down to a shorter window, it's likely something a lot of people might miss out, so I think keeping the window open, but perhaps modifying the way it is swayed might be a good thing. A longer event means people can actually come around and participate no matter what timezone they are in.
This is an interesting point, but I think it also makes assumptions that having an experience in which you find yourself overwhelmed and killed is going to result as a negative experience.
I was introduced into PK when Enorian was stricter about their bounty system and people got bountied for hunting in Teinhelm or something. Let me paint the picture here: True noob me playing for a few days, week tops, very casually. I know nothing about the lore, I have never thrown an emote in my life and I'm just sort of following around an Achean who made an Aetolian character in a hunt. I die to something in Teinhelm, while I'm in the death sequence I see that I have been branded an enemy to Enorian. My thoughts, "oh, there must be an NPC named Enorian in that city. Cool!". Later on I come to find there's a bounty on my head that comes with this. I don't know what this means and I ignore it. A few hours later some noncom is trying to pick off a newbie kill by shooting arrows from afar. I find them and charge after spamming a first tier bashing attack. Said noncom runs, calls an alert and a bigger badder person comes out and kills me. A big fight results after between factions and boom, I've been initiated into PK.
This was the best thing that could have happened to me because right from the start and before I got overly invested in what image my character was going to have; I learned to accept the reality to RP when it involves martial competence. I've always thought the strongest character growth occurred when Xenia throws into a cause which will force her to be on her toes and have to actually -try- to accomplish.
This argument that noncoms need something is like insisting the base line of a game should be easy mode because it's too hard, and thats just insulting.
Thankfully, the Orrery doesn't give the negatives that not having landmarks gave (no passive essence/devotion regen anyone?), but it gave something for those who enjoyed open-world pk something to do for x amount of time (It was like seven days?).
Now, back during that time, even though it was not explicitly spelled out, everyone agreed that if you went gathering pages/buckets/butterflies or whatever other landmark-specific items, and someone saw you, you were involving yourself, therefore saying "I am open to pk." Everything in this event, from the inception to the HELP file, makes this sound like it caters to people who want to spend 72 hours fighting over something that is not ylem. I know the help file explicitly says that picking up essence doesn't mean you can be killed, but all I read when I see that is, "Have your force hold the observatory while your minions gather
mineralsessence."I'm all for getting people who don't enjoy fighting involved in the game and doing more, but it should be understood that to you can't have it all if you choose to not learn a part of the game. The Orrery catering to both PKers and non-coms, to me, seems more like a reflection of population, not necessarily design.
Not to mention, the idea that anything that's noncom being 'easy mode' is the actual insulting thing. At the time of the Skythrone war, we had a player who DID want to get involved but, as result of using Screenreader, couldn't really participate in PK and the noncoms from the lifer side were getting slaughtered for stepping foot into the area. I understand people will say "well you can't accommodate everyone" but, well, this event would've done a pretty sweet job of doing it! Having a PK zone around the target and letting noncoms gather items takes into account that not everyone interacts with the game in the same way, and I think that's pretty stellar.
Mind you, I totally understand that PKers need more events and it looks like this is absolutely their response to try and make sure they get what they're after. I'm sure we'll start seeing more stuff like this, perfected and tweaked until it's just right, and that's cool. I just hope we can try and keep these sorts of things in mind as we continue to discuss and tweak this sort of event.
I also agree with it being open only some hours during the day, enough that it covers multiple timezones, and still allows time for people to log off and rest and not feel guilty(something I also hear often from other players). PK is difficult, and requires a number of things to be able to be done with any efficiency. I particularly loved the inclusion of noncoms in this event, and I know for a fact many of the players in the guild and city I am part of feel the same way.
Saying this event is a PK event is ignoring the explicit rules the admin laid out. There's a reason only a certain area of the event is open-pk, and a reason to them explicitly saying globe-holders are not open-pk - so others can participate. Same way there's a reason there have been so many changes to globe-holding and such, so there is no stalemate while a side holds the globes outside a PK zone, and they are still accessible and the game can go on.
Calling this an "easy mode" means disregarding how other people play it - people who craft, who just rp, who play in politics, who just bash. Those players are valuable too, keeping them included is a good way to ensure Aetolia grows. We don't force people to craft, we don't force them to RP or get involved in politics, and these people still get involved in events, the same should be said for people who don't want to PK.
If noncoms "want to participate" as you say, then let them get involved and discover what PK is actually like in the game. If they decide that it's frustrating and they don't like it, then they truly are "noncoms" and won't find PK entertaining. Pandering to them and holding their hands so they don't get frustrated waters down the experience for the PK'ers who actually put in the work to get good at that aspect of the game.
The idea that noncoms feel entitled to participating in a PK event without learning how to PK essentially ties down the hands of PK'ers during these events, and this is insulting. Who's forcing you to PK? I am not forced to craft or engage in politics on Fezzix, and I am not forced to PK on him, either. During crafting contests, do we make special provisions for players who aren't good at crafting so that they don't feel irritated?
I put in the work to get good at different aspects of the game, and I am able to play the character the way I do because of said work. If someone wants to RP as being some mighty paragon of the Light or deadly Shadow Warrior and then gets irritated when they can't PK to back it up, that's their own fault for making the choice.
Don't demand that PK events be tailored to a group of players that it's not meant to entertain. Crafting, politics, etc. are all perfectly valid outlets, but let's be real here. Big events (and PK events as an extension) are the backbone of the game that keep it interesting. PK and hunting events are the cake, politics are the icing that holds the layers together and gives flavor, and crafting is the creative decorating that makes it pop.
Without PK events, we're left with a big mess of icing and those little hard sugar balls that crack your teeth if you bite into them without knowing they're there. Or we're left playing dress up with Barbie dolls and making up plots to our own Aetolian soap operas.
I do think it's good to allow for less experienced PVPers or noncombatants to be involved in 'PK events' but I'm not sure if exploiting what amount to loopholes in code is the best way to do it. Some kind of support role (maybe using bashing to influence globe spawns or such, idk) would probably be more effective than having them directly tied into the funmurder.
...I guess what I'm trying to say open PK Iron Epicurean if you want to have noncom stuff here.
Not saying I agree with the idea that the PVP aspects should be restricted to allow for noncom entry, but I don't think it's as direct a comparison as you're making.
I'd argue, in fact, that doing well/being useful in a lot of RP scenes/crafting scenes takes longer than it does to be helpful at PK. Even if you just stand there looping shield until you die, at least you soaked some hits for your team.
Either way though, by making this more noncomm inclusive you are making this more PKer EXCLUSIVE because that's more hoops we have to jump through in order to get our fun. If you had to wade through me spamming telepathy on you to collect your ingredients, or if Fezzix got to shoot arrows at you while you danced, it'd be more difficult/less fun, right? It's more or less the same thing.
That doesn't mean I will be breaking rules, and that sure doesn't mean I won't issue/take revenge on people who break the rules (that'll be fun soon too!), but it does detract from the experience so sayeth the PK crowd I have talked to so far.
And trying to say that any noncom wanting to just do their part to help their city(just as they can with ylem with mines and, in a lot of cases, minor foci) is trying to RP some mighty paragon that can't back it up is also untrue, and not really matching what actually happens in game. Nobody is stopping the PK from happening, it still happened. It happened a LOT, during the few hours we were there. I spent all of yesterday doing nothing but organizing groups, pking within my group, and calling more people to come and do MORE PK.
Asking that events that largely affect the lore and stories of Aetolia only cater to people who are willing to PK is excluding a large portion of the playerbase. It's fine if YOU feel the game is made up of PK and hunting, and the rest is decorative, but that is just your view, and the game is open to more, and in order for it to grow, they can accomodate more. What this event did was not stopping the PK, the rules in place didn't keep it from happening, it just allowed more people to participate.
Most of the people I play with play this game for the RP aspect, some of them play it for the crafting aspect, those are also valid views and ways to play the game. The point is, though, that these people do not necessarily expect others to do what they do.