Letter from the Game Director: 14 January 2008

[Xaun]

heh soz, that post was so long that It hurt my head to even consider reading the whole thing, I must have misunderstood your post.

Bah... people please spend a moment to read my whole post at the bottom of page 10.. I know its long but thats because I put about 3 hours of work into writing it and trying to be sure to cover as many of the possible exploits and loop holes as I could. I didn't just push a magic "spit out 2+ pages of words" button

[Jellyfunk]

Players will now have a series of new stats visible in their character sheet that display the number of solo kills and deaths, team kills and deaths and Duel kills and deaths.
[...]
This system will not apply in the battlestation as we feel that in that environment where you have a limited number of opponents in a very specific scenario where people are dying and returning quickly its not particularly fair to not reward you for your kills there.

Is this not going to spell a world of pain for casual PvPers or for people at the low end of their BS level range?

Under the current system there's no reason for title hunters to kill low-titled people. If you're awarding points for any kill, there's a huge incentive for these people to chain kill lowbies and the inexperienced and leave "tougher" opponents alone.

Please consider restricting the kill counter and points awards to people within a certain pvp title range, at least in BS

[Traquemort]

Titles decaying based on played time would be the best option, for sure it wouldn't prevent farmers from keeping their title, but who gives a **** about farmers anyway?

On new duel option, well it won't change that much from current system, and when you ask someone for a duel you don't expect him to be OSB'd, if he is then you'll notice it and just /ignore him since he's not much more worth than a farmer.

About OS, try to make fixer debuffs friendly but with NR check (should be doable) so they can debuff lowbies too, or just prevent people out of level range from placing laser tagging device.

About engi tower, please have a look at that thing called THE WORKSHOP, you know? the engi's forum? The Place That Shouldn't Be Visited, maybe tells you something? Make it have a use for the engi or your fix will break that profession yet more than it is now.

[kuznechik]

I forgot to say "please no" to new engi pet in this thread.
So I'm doing it.

It's "bad idea" (tm).

[Xaun]

I forgot to say "please no" to new engi pet in this thread.
So I'm doing it.

It's "bad idea" (tm).

New Nanos for NW/OS
Give a new nano "Aura of Deflection" to keepers that makes them a walking beacon of what the engi pet would have done.
Give shades the ability to use an AOE "Find and grab marker" nano then let them target an enemy and use another nano allowing the beacon to be relocated to the targets feet.

Both nanos could have increased usefulness at as it goes from a lvl 10 nano to the 220 variants giving both keepers and shades a purpose in lowbie TL wars because currently if you bring either a keeper twink or a shade (not truly twinkable) to a tower fight you will probably die before you can notice everyone laughing at you :P you could for laughs make the shades baby versions of it only pick it up and give the transfer it to a target later on basically making them a running suicide bomb :P or just make them literally consume it making it utterly vanish altogether at baby levels and transfer at the higher TLs and have the keeper nano start with 25% and scale up to 95% or something and make the shades range of being able to throw it at a target increase till they can finally go at max 40m range at 220.

Gotcha covered I am suggesting give Keepers and Shades the new nano things neither fixers nor engis want and I tried hard to keep it logical as to why these skills would be moved to them over Funcoms current concept of Engi/Fixer who are truly already over taxed enough for being walking buff totems already. While Keepers and Shades literally serve no real purpose atm other than front line cannon fodder and red herrings at the distraction fields because we are melee and you know the survival rate of melee + root/OS. :S

[IHaveHugeNick]

Bump for Xaun (yes i just said that.)

[Xaun]

Bump for Xaun (yes i just said that.)

<3 ^_^

[wertewrtey]

Yes, of course I can qualify that with 'what we thought the most people enjoy', it's always a judgement call and we have to make those base on what we think will work best in keeping with what the majority of people will find fun.

In this case, when presented with a choice we opted for the 'with buffs' style as we feel that it fits with the above. We fully understand and appreciate the other point of view in this instance and if we could have included both easily we would have. It's something that might be more possible with a little time later down the line, but for now we had to make a choice and we went for the one that we felt would be more fun for more people.

You do realize that it will remove all new low level players from PvP duels... since they will get absolutely destroyed by anyone with outside buffs... right?

Most people's first experience in PvP in a new game is fighting as is, in their equipment that they've managed to pick up from quests/missions/looting... It's not until months later that they realize all the extras they can get to make themselves better...

[Maeventura]

Bump for Xaun (yes i just said that.)

QFT

[Traquemort]

You do realize that it will remove all new low level players from PvP duels... since they will get absolutely destroyed by anyone with outside buffs... right?

Most people's first experience in PvP in a new game is fighting as is, in their equipment that they've managed to pick up from quests/missions/looting... It's not until months later that they realize all the extras they can get to make themselves better...

You do realize it's already the case and didn't discourage all the people who currently pvp?
Anyway, with or without OSBs, a new player getting /duelled by a twink will stand no chance and get destroyed in a few seconds, the main problem is high level duels where you have to trust people on not getting OSBs. If you don't trust, don't duel.

[Xaun]

<snip>

<snip>

PS: I am SOOOO Glad to hear that you added the option to block duel requests as it was one thing that absolutely drove me nuts in my short stay in WoW was having that stupid "xyz has challenged you to a duel Accept/decline" window popping up on me every two seconds as a lvl 3 newbie trying to figure out how to play. A suggestion is turn that option off by default so newcomers cannot be exploited for easy kills without truly grasping whats going on. (and no I did not hit accept and die in WoW )

Covered that on page like 3

[harkness]

An alternative list for the solo titles?

Boa
Boomslang
Python
Rattler
Viper
Taipan
Asp
Death Adder
Black Mamba
King Cobra

[wertewrtey]

Notum Wars Changes


· It will no longer be possible to place a beacon while in your PVP grace period.

You've left out the most important part to fixing orbital strikes....

• Players will now have to be in the level range of the Notum Wars Towers field in order to place a beacon. (+/- 20% of the middle tower field PvP Range)
• Players whom leave the suppression gas or the zone will no longer be able to use any beacon they've previously placed. (Similar to pets aborting their fights when owner is out of range)

[Xaun]

You've left out the most important part to fixing orbital strikes....

• Players will now have to be in the level range of the Notum Wars Towers field in order to place a beacon. (+/- 20% of the middle tower field PvP Range)
• Players whom leave the suppression gas or the zone will no longer be able to use any beacon they've previously placed. (Similar to pets aborting their fights when owner is out of range)

Yes this really does need to be implemented to make the OS changes work properly.

[wertewrtey]

You do realize it's already the case and didn't discourage all the people who currently pvp?
Anyway, with or without OSBs, a new player getting /duelled by a twink will stand no chance and get destroyed in a few seconds, the main problem is high level duels where you have to trust people on not getting OSBs. If you don't trust, don't duel.

Yes, but currently the low level new players aren't getting invited to duels either...


The OSBs are hardly imbalancing in high level duels in the same manner as the same buffs are at level 15

[wertewrtey]

Covered that on page like 3

I agree with you, that duel requests should be default off with the OSB's being standard for duels.

[Ragetra]

If you are in a team (or killed by a team) the score is credited to your team score (and kill / death listing) as a team-kill rather than a solo-kill. Who is credited with the kill is decided by who does the most damage to the target.

does this mean the team which did the most dmg or the player from team who dealt most? the second option would be a lousy system for all support professions

[rustinel]

Solo Ranks

· shodan

· nidan

· sandan

· yodan

· godan

· rokudan

· nanadan

· hachidan

· kudan

· judan

WTB Desperate Dan!

[Hacre]

does this mean the team which did the most dmg or the player from team who dealt most? the second option would be a lousy system for all support professions

Asked and answered. The -team- that does the most damage, the -team- gets the credit for the kill. Much like killing mobs in PVM. Instead of the whole team getting loot rights, the whole team gets points rights

[psyxor]

Solo Ranks

1 shodan

2 nidan

3 sandan

4 yodan

5 godan

6 rokudan

7 nanadan

8 hachidan

9 kudan

10 judan

4 Stolen from star wars
5 Conflicts with my religious beliefs (Especially since its not top rank)
7 Baby sitting has no place in pvp
10 is racist ;p


Bump for Masta;s list