What makes it most difficult for you to PvP?

Daren

Even if you do PvP a lot, which of the following things makes you think twice about it most often? I'd like to get a representative sample! It's an anonymous poll, and you don't have to post or anything - so see if you can get your non-forums friends to come vote real quick too.

Leana

I'm not surprised. People get way salty.

Mjoll

My vote is "Frequency" Sometimes it feels like we tap 20 lessers while I'm logged in and I just wanna do other things!

Zaila

I feel like "can't code" deserves its own unique button.

Over the years, plenty of people have offered to teach me, started to teach me, and then, invariably got too busy to continue or just forgot. I appreciate the bits they've always stuck around with teaching, because I've learned some random basics, but that is hardly enough to really get me invested in trying to build a system.

All that said, even if I COULD code, I get the impression I'd get WAY too bored to actually fully build any coherent system because I prefer to RP - and PK would just be an extension of my RP. And I'm lazy as heck.

I'd happily pay someone 1000+ credits to build me a system I could use in nexus, since that's what I use 90+% of the time. But I can't, because no one's willing to do that.

Rhyot

Heres my biggest issue of PvP. Cheesedick tactics of tfix spam only made possible by the utilization of Sunder that works in tandem with every fucking class Spirit side has. 

Otherwise.. Love PvP. 

Stine

I clicked disagree on the above not just because it's just a terrible complaint, but because Shadow side has the exact same capability and has shown they'll use it. I know @Rhyot doesn't speak (at all) for the PKers, but man, that's just such a short-sighted thing to complain about.

Toz

The issue remains the arms race's end, as far as pk goes. One day you're gonna have a system that's nearly indistinguishable from a top tier pker. And then there won't be a point to pk any more. It's a long time in the making, buuuut we get closer every update and I dislike that trend in general.

The biggest problem remains the players though, and while sides aren't monolithic "starve them of pk then issue them if they hit you with no aura" followed by being ganked with no aura/illegally followed by complaints when the same was done back was exceptionally frustrating.

I made a herculean effort to not pull anyone into aura unless they already had it, I refused to chase people down until they had aura, and in general tried to keep it within the rules. And there's still people claiming I did x or y to them and breaking rules to pk me, and that remains extremely unpleasant, especially when paired with several high profile issues being dismissed when rules were clearly broken.

ETA: If I actually did force someone to kick a Mitrine, issue it up. I don't believe I ever did, but I definitely did force someone to kick an Ophidian while they were bashing (and thus had aura). One of those is against the rules though and if there's anything about it in the spool I'll eat my well deserved peace or shrub without protest, because that would have been massively unchill of me.

Leana

Sunder is available for Shadow, it's just not programmed for their classes. Shadow side has the mentality that any handout makes you lesser and they'd rather have less fighters over a group of people running competent systems. Though, some have done just that for their guilds, realizing the benefit of getting people involved in pvp. 

They need to experience it to see if they enjoy it. Asking someone to put in work, especially against extremely powerful and experienced players, without even knowing if they like the activity they're working on is downright insane.

I like to think that Sunder has done more good than harm. Like Source and ksys systems and all the other things that get people into the game.

However,
Wanting to be part of pvp and doing nothing to make that happen is the real issue. There's a lot of reasons: time, knowledge, disliking the combat in general, or just plain laziness and they're all valid to some degree. 

When the system singularity that Toz speaks of happens we can rest assured that money with still separate the top tier from the others. 


Edit: I forgot to say... I try to not be predatory and approach combat in a way that's most fun for everyone. That is, unless someone just tries to be an ass. I will offer a few nonviolent solutions and pursue violence until it's done. I'm pretty clear on my policies in game. 

Rhyot

So I've got no issue with people wanting to learn to PK. None at all. Hell, I've helped a handful of people code their own makeshift offenses, have helped more people tweak their offenses and have even taught a few of them what they should be doing instead of what they ARE doing.

My issue is the IDEA of Sunder. A completely 100% offensive system made for anyone with a modicum of a brain cell that can type 'kill'. Having a fully offensive system like Sunder removes any real reason to actually LEARN your class. Learn your skills. Learn your kill routes. Learn your AB file and how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. What I equate Sunder to is someone going, "I want to put together a 1000 piece puzzle of dragons, but not spend 16 hours actually doing it." This ruins the entire experience and joy people have in actually SOLVING the puzzle that is PK and winning for their very first time because they understood their class set and HOW to set up their killroute. People complain about "immersion" into a game for roleplay sake. Actually learning your class is part of that "immersion", but this is being disregarded and forgotten because of the creation of Sunder.

However, like Toz said... with the initiation of Sunder, as time progresses.... people are going to make it viable to top tier combat and then what's the point? If you have TopSunder vs TopSunder.... you'll only win if you have a faster ping rate or a lack of lag because you're both curing the same, you're both attacking the way you need to attack, you're both fighting the way you need to fight, setting up the way you need to set up, and even know exactly what the other person is going to do next. This removes the complexity of PK and any real reason to PK because "We know one of us will win based off connection time alone and nothing else." And all you have to do to make this happen, is type 'kill'... nothing else. Then what?

Vyxsis

i think i'd kind of echo @Zaila's wish that "don't know how to code" had its own option, but possibly for slightly different reasons?

not having skills or artifacts is a financial barrier that, personally, i think shouldn't really exist. yeah, i know, gotta keep the servers running blah blah blah, these monetary things are dictated from higher up the chain yadda yadda, etc. i get it. as a player, though? i don't like it.

coding, on the other hand, is something that can be learned. if lack of coding knowledge is why people don't PK, it's something we can address as players. it's true that the 'system singularity' may eventually come, but until then, PK in aetolia is largely a sort of puzzle. the people who do well at it have taken time to understand mechanics, think out their approaches, and hone their code to more effectively carry out their plans.

in aetolia, coding just is the player skill, as in an fps it might be well-developed hand-eye coordination or in an mmo it might be learning your ability rotations. some people may find it easier to learn these things, but that isn't in itself unfair, in my opinion. different people have different aptitudes for various activities - it implies nothing about them as people. for instance, i'm just... not good at shooters. i can have fun and do ok, but for example, i'm pretty solidly a mid-to-high gold Overwatch player. i recognize that i don't spend much time trying to improve my mechanical abilities in those games, though. could i? yeah, probably, but i don't for various reasons (top of the list being: i'm not interested in doing so).

this is the case with coding for a lot of people. it doesn't interest them, so they don't put time into improving. that's fine! i get it! there are loads of things i feel similarly about (see above). however, coding isn't something that's closed to people in principle. there are lots of crash-course-type resources online, for example, where interested parties can go learn some basics, and Lua isn't a super-complex language to begin with. ever been told "if you eat your vegetables, then you can have dessert"? do you understand that statement? congrats, you understand 85% of the Lua you need to write an offense.

at this point, people might look at me like: "vyx, that's easy for you to say, you know how to code." but i didn't! i came into aetolia with no coding experience, and initially, i had absolutely no interest in pk. i just wanted to keep my head down, rp, and bash. when i started to change my mind about that, i began by looking at systems -- namely, Source and AFFT -- and trying to figure out how they worked. i asked a lot of questions. i spent hours writing the first iteration of my Luminary offense, which only sorta worked, but as i continued working on it, i learned more and more. now? i think i'm pretty decent at pk, and i know i can code fairly well at an amateur level.

i guess what i'm trying to get across is: coding is a barrier to entry, yes, but it is neither insurmountable nor different in kind from skill barriers we all accept in other kinds of games. if you're not interested in learning to do it, that's fine. heck, if you'd like to but don't have time, that's fine, too! i don't judge you for that, and nobody else should, either -- just as we wouldn't judge you for not being able to afford getting your character omnitrans and whaled up. all games have elements like this. however, i do think we have to be honest with ourselves about it. don't treat code like it's a mystical text with symbols only the chosen few can decipher, because it's just not. it's not money -- a resource we don't all have equal access to.

/$2.02

personally, i empathize most with people who don't want to participate in PK because of player attitudes. it's probably unavoidable that people will sometimes be upset, but we seem to've made a sort of minigame out of raging. idk why we do this or how it's come to be. i suspect trying to figure that out won't be all that productive. what we could do, though, is try to think about ways to bring our raging down to healthier levels.

i often take the tactic of joking around as a way to blow off steam. sometimes this is fine, but recently, i did it in a way that was really counter-productive because my jokes targeted other players in the web. i was being thoughtless more than mean-spirited, but does it matter? at least some of these people were put off by it, and it definitely contributed to a negative environment. i'm probably not alone in being someone who jokingly "talks unicorns" to people -- and i'm aware that often people feel compelled to just accept it lest they be seen as too serious or not being able to take a joke. that sucks, right? thankfully, somebody confronted me about it, and i'm trying to make an effort to reign that behavior in on my part.

i noted something else in that conversation, though: one person talked about certain behavior as "acting like lifers." i hate that unicorns. i mean, listen, it doesn't make sense in the first place considering how small this game is, as well as how many people have played a character on both sides and/or have alts on both sides. are there people who mostly stick to one side? sure, but it seems to me like they're kinda the minority. ANYWAYS. i'm not here for that noise, just as i wasn't here for certain people on the Spirit side who would talk in webs about shadow players being legit bad people who deserve to be mistreated. it's both pretty dumb given the way tethers overlap players and plain ol' not cool. are we roleplaying characters that oppose each other in deep, serious ways? heck yeah! does that mean that we, as people, ought to be deeply, seriously antagonistic towards each other? gosh, i hope not. it's not really roleplaying if we're actually enemies lol, so let's not regard each other that way, eh? (tbc, i'm not saying you have to like or even get along with everyone, but let's not have or spread these sorts of presumptive judgements about the people behind characters based on their character's tether. super damaging, especially to people [like myself] who are [or were not long ago] 100% new to the game and MUDs generally.)

OK FOR REAL /$200.22

Xavin

I know I don't really have much room to be talking since I don't play anymore, but people have been worrying about people being given or purchasing systems since at least 2006, and likely were worrying before it. Perhaps Sunder is just the latest, or the fact that it's more prolific than its predecessors, or the fact that it is publicly available with an offense is what makes it different. But honestly? These arguments have been around for forever.

That all said, I know when I was around I didn't do pk much for a combination of reasons. Lack of enjoyment towards the end of my play period and behavior of people on both sides being the prime ones.

Ioai

I want to hit 100 first.

Mimotesh

I have little to no interest in coding, so that's probably my main reason. I do enjoy small scale com/majors, or fighting in a war, or helping with raids and things like that, but with only a few aliases and firstaid, I'm really no match against real combatants. However, since there are a lot of other good combatants around, I don't feel the need to learn more, since I'm only a support-combatant. I will never be a person who's interested in arena fighting or sect duels. I leave that to others.

Jensen

I stopped being involved in PvP and inevitably quit playing due to lack of incentive. I find a lot of it is hollow, repetitive, and unrewarded. The thrill went away a long time ago, and the conflicts that do happen got stale. Now I think I'm so far behind the times I'd need to devote a significant amount of energy to play again and I still wouldn't have the experiences I used to.

Sect came too late for me, ylem was never rewarding, and I miss cause and effect (even if it got griefy).

Tyson

now war over i afk
i want to mashy murder button
but why i gotta wait til lesser
i gotta work too occasionally
want way to make pk
want my team invested in silliness
cause i am not that good
dying makes me laugh
seeking raven minipets

Xenia

I usually stop fighting when I stop making the effort to improve, either form lack of interest or time. This means I will show up to group fights but won't attempt competitive one on one conflict.

Mjoll

The thousands of hours I'll have to throw down the RNG hole of breeding.

Xenia

Mjoll said:

The thousands of hours I'll have to throw down the RNG hole of breeding.

Because this is 100% why right now I don't even want to bother.

Leana

Don't even understand why this is a thing.

Daren

Not sure if 35 is necessarily a 'representative sample', but it does look like we narrowed the biggest hurdles down to 3 (4? 3.5?) things: player behavior, poor timing, and don't have the player skills/money invested. First one's a big old can of worms I'll just leave right here for someone else to open. But how about those other 2 (3?)!

For poor timing, I think people get caught up in just the prescribed PvP mechanics (see: hostility/ylem aura). There's also player-driven conflicts (raids, or shout-instigating) but I suppose those have somewhat negative connotations attached to them, which is kind of unfortunate but perfectly reasonable since they're probably used in negative ways a lot. And there's always sect, but it's hard to break into, since the biggest sect-ers are the high-end folks who can be really discouraging for newer people to fight against. What other sorts of on-demand PvP do we have, or could we create? As players, not necessarily looking for new mechanics, I'm sure admin are busy as-is.

As for the last reason(s), let me just put this out there: you only need FIRSTAID ON, FIRSTAID DEFENCE ON, someone's reasonably decent cureset, one trigger to follow calls, and a K alias to pitch in monumentally for group PvP. Here's something I wrote for lifers but that I'm happy to share with everyone, it's basically a step-by-step on setting up the most rudimentary group offense. Check it out! Then get out there and PvP your heart out!

PS: hit me up anytime if you want a basic, functional cureset for groups that includes your main defenses, regardless of side. I'm happy to share one.

Illikaal

My own laziness.

Emir

Other peoples you mean amirite

Illikaal

Emir said:

Other peoples you mean emirite

First of all.

Irruel

Kinda shitty of me to post in this thread, given I don't play anymore. But as my answer to the question is the reason I don't play Aetolia anymore...

1) Off-peak there wasn't (note the tense there; I'm aware it may not be true anymore) the population to PVP - it was rarely possible to even find someone to arenaspar with.

2) The state of pvp design (mechanics) encouraging and even requiring perfect attack selection at blisteringly quick speeds meant a requirement to automate offense - something I am quite capable of doing, but bored with.

I get that it distinguishes Aetolia from other IRE muds, and that some (Many? All?) Aetolians like it this way. It's just not for me.

Zarni

I run limbfarer with my numpad and do just fine(or did until I quit playing). Spamming macros reminds me of the good old days in Achaea and makes me happy

Eliadon

^ Same for me with monk, and can just hold down shift to wrt instead of kick/etc.

Yedan

I just have to say, coming from Achaea I was firmly in the "I can manual this." camp. I was wrong. The way balances and such are set up in this game is just different. Now that I've used Sunder's template and managed to make my own offense, I find PvP INFINITELY more enjoyable. Funny thing, manualing the class to test different approaches ended up showing me how best to code the offense, refine it, and make it as efficient as possible. It also helped me learn the class better (started out as Zealot, then picked up Syssin). And I still chase manually and finish, but having an offense going while you keep track of other things just makes the game more enjoyable for me. Been pking on various muds for 20 years now, and this is the most fun I've had yet I have to say. Just my two cents.

Master Yedan Adesso, Ambassador

Drayne

Well, I did my first group PvP in one of these games in several years today. After sitting around for maybe 20 minutes, I casted 1 reflection right before the enemy group came in and before I had recovered EQ from that (about 2 seconds) I was dead. I don't want to be whining or anything but I don't see myself participating in such a thing again because there are other things I would prefer to spend my time on.

There might be some possible solutions to stuff like this, such as military formation skills or whatever (I think they do something like that in Aardwolf, although I realize that's a pretty different game).

Lin

Guys this thread is from two years ago

Archelaus

@drayne I'm not super useful at group combat and frequently die early myself, but I'm trying to learn and do better! Maybe reach out to people in your city to see if they can help?

I'm not sure if you were just terribly outnumbered in this one instance, but I wouldn't let one bad experience discourage you.

Tetchta

Newbs often get targetted first to reduce overall DPS as quickly as possible. It's just how it goes! Learn to run away, get a shield tattoo, fly, dig, or stay in an adjacent room throwing rocks!