Enough is Enough

[Warboc]

Notum Wars: A Failure

Why? Well..... :


1) Crowd Control
2) No alliance system
3) Small guilds shafted (see 1 and 2)


I started "The Notum Wars Era" as leader of a small clan guild. We placed QL 250,150,100, & 75 towers. The 250 and 150 were in PW, the 100 in Belial, and the 75 in VW. Total active members of my guild stod at approximately 30 (Lvl 150 and above). Total members online at any given time was approximately 5-10. Well equipped to construct bases, but definitley unable to defend.

No problem, NW is where clans and omnis have truly united with orgs of their own faction. Getting clanners to come and assist us with base defense is something they are eagerly willing to do, as we were with them.......... Of course this is the case with a well-designed system that allows for proper defense of bases and offensives against bases. This is not the case in NW. I have since disbanded my guild.

Here are examples of the negative aspects I have experienced:

As a defender:

- Defending a base in 5%, unable to team clans from other orgs during mad frienzy to defend base. (see #2, #3)
- Having zone crash (PW) and base getting reset to 100%, offsetting omni efforts. (Note: was NOT scheduled to be 100%, had couple hours left till * 5% *)
- Assisting with defending other clan bases and being warped out, even tho there are only a handful of clan defending. (See #1,#3)

As an attacker:

- Continuous CC/LD loops due to being warped out of area into some other part of zone, which is already maxxed to capacity. (see #1)
- Being warped and being able to freely pvp omni who have also been warped. (see #1)



Obviously I could sit here and make those lists VERY long. The point is that as a player, I experience bugs and frustration instead of fun and enjoyment while playing a game. Games are meant to be fun ya know.. Overall I am not very optimistic that NW will be very playable anytime soon, much less in the future.

To apply an old business analogy to this: Funcom: Keep it Simple, Stupid!

Its not the players computers causing lag. It's the servers. You have only made it 1000% worse by implementing crowd control. The lag is STILL there. Instead of coming up with some elaborate system to balance battles and decrease lag, Keep it Simple, Stupid! The simple solution is a massive hardware upgrade, not the implementation of elaborate coding that only adds to the problems experienced by your customers. What has resulted is the additon of even more bugs (why do I feel like I have beta tested AO for two years now) that your customers have to deal with. Your complicated 'fixes' to a problem of lag is just not ethical. Why can't you as a company see the true weakness in its system? Your customers certainly can.

Enough is enough, fix it using the simple solution. Upgrade your hardware, implement alliances, remove crowd control, etc. Avoid the complex solutions that have been demonstrated as failures.

Laterness....

[Warboc]

EDIT: Add to list:

When defending:

- Pets being used to attack our base. Can not attack the pets because owner is in 75%.
- CAV zone crashed, while MANY Omni orgs (hehe) attacked our base, ending all fun for everyone involved. Obviously crowd control not functioning properly. "Server Down"

[Brutal Truuth]

dont foget Logging back in only to find everyone else there first :P

I got pwned coming back in :P visiting my good ol friend ~/ Reclaim Terminal \~

anyways , some nice new bugs ... Zone crashing .... CC keeping defenders out .... hope no one decides to raid a huge base with tons of forces

[_________Divinecross]

100% agree

[CrownandSeven]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[_____________arsiine]

Finally a thread that isn't strickly a complaint. Complaints are great but ideas are even better no matter how retarded.

My retarded idea:
Just use the mechanism FC already has in (entering an area that is overcrowded) which bumps you back 2 spaces and doens't allow you in. Set a cap on omni-clanners that can be in the land control area and once that cap is met nobody can enter the LC area.

Maybe this idea is lame but at least its not just a complaint=).

-Arsiine

p.s. btw warping = bad. remove it pls.

[Snuble]

And let me add one:

Not even close to enough fields to build on. What is the consequence of that? Well, first of all 99% of the players are denied access to them. Second, if they choose to join an org with towers, they won't get to place any towers because those areas is already built 100%. Oh, just grab another area? Not enough areas for that...

Nah, towers should have a counter on them. Every 168 hours and the thing goes *BOOOOM*. Faction of the previous owner can't build for 5 hours. Result? Every 168 hours entire zones will change from Omni to Clan, and during the next 5 days, most of them will be taken back by the other faction. Now that would be interesting

[Warboc]

Originally posted by Troey

My retarded idea:
Just use the mechanism FC already has in (entering an area that is overcrowded) which bumps you back 2 spaces and doens't allow you in. Set a cap on omni-clanners that can be in the land control area and once that cap is met nobody can enter the LC area.

When I first read about crowd control, I assumed it would work somthing like this. A land control area would be just that, an area separate from surrounding space. Would be nice if you tried to enter that land control area and got a message saying full and it simply permitted you from walking any farther forward.

However, what would this really accomplish. This would still keep these players in the zone. Crowd control mostly warps players to the far corners of the zones they are fighting in. Thus keeping them within the zone as well. The result a lot of times is the zone will usually crash (ie CAV crashing last night).

Again, keep it simple. Upgrade the servers/hardware. As it is now, the servers can not support all the people within a zone taht show up in the larger battles. This alone needs to be resolved before any system such as crowd control is implemented.

[____________Crepidus]

Bump bump good post.

[Warboc]

Originally posted by Crepidus
Bump bump good post.

Thanks for the support. In all honesty, it baffles me that the obvious solution is not implemented to resolve 'lag'.

[Scorse]

.

[Jaesic]

Yeah... check out my thread on an alliance code suggestion. Think it might be something you would be interested in.

Jaesic

[Warboc]

Originally posted by Jaesic
Yeah... check out my thread on an alliance code suggestion. Think it might be something you would be interested in.

Jaesic

Yep, as I said alliances are definitely needed in some form. However, everything MUST start with server hardware upgrades. Until this is done, any new coding will simply compound the problems experienced by customer.

Everyone knows this including Funcom. Yet we get patch after patch of elaborate coding with increased bugginess, with little or no resolve to the lag issues in mass battles OR 'gatherings' (Tir Grid, Newland).


On a side note, to whoever tied the ****ng rubberbands around my ankles: Please remove them, it's not funny anymore!

[_____________imhotep]

Hammer squarely on the Head, good post.

[________________Crin]

Well I'll hold up one hand to defend Funcom and smack them on the back of the head with the other. Throwing more hardware at the problem is probably too expensive and isn't going to happen. I can understand and accept that decision.

(Smack)

The true problem is that too many players have the ability and need to congregate in one small area. That is the core problem that must be addressed. Until it is, no event in AO will ever work.

Solution:

• Finally get that interdimensional travel working. Spread out the populations between the servers.
  
• Allow the area of conflict to expand. If there are too many people to fight in one area then start dropping the gas suppression until the area is big enough to hold everyone.
  
• Add secondary targets. The shield neutralizer should not be a one shot deal. It should require continuous power from other sources. If the defenders can take out those sources, the attack is over.
  
  Btw, Looking to the attackers power source would add a real reconnaissance role to land control. I'd be nice if everything wasn't just about blowing stuff up and doing damage.
  
• Travel over the planet needs to be made more difficult. Otherwise any event worth seeing will crash the zone. Yalms should require fuel and NPCs should be given the ability to shoot them out of the air. Traveling in a Yalm over unsafe territory should be quite dangerous.
  
  To counteract that, many more save and shopping terminals need to be placed around the planet. Once you get in an area, you should be able to stay there for a while. A few items like ammo and fuel for vehicles could even be made scarce in the outer regions to promote trade.
  
• The Fixer's grid should be segmented. The outer lying portions should be cut off from the rest. These outer grids would only be as big as a zone or two. This is to emphasize the point that once you are in an area, you should plan on staying there for a while. The Fixer could still be given the ability to more between the different segments of the grid but not be able to transport others across the gaps. This would truly give the Fixers their smuggling title. They'd be the only ones able to quickly transport items across the planet.
  
• The obvious stuff now: Get crowd control working and allow guild alliances.

Adding more hardware is a Band-Aid to the real problem. In the beginning Funcom wanted their entire population on one server. Now they have to deal with the problem when that entire population wants to show up for an event and have the ability to do it.

Land control battles should be a local event and getting your forces in place undetected should be part of the strategy for attacking and defending a base.

[Warboc]

ONE MONTH LATER....... same silliness.....


*MAJOR Bumpage*

[drakoslady]

BUMPAGE this stinks

[Abdominaux]

A system with a real alliance (so u can grid to your allies bases, have a message in your guildchat etc) will be very very good.
Crowd Control = {Moderator: Corcumventing the profanity filter is not allowed.}

100% agree with Warboc

[_________KrazyKanuck]

Originally posted by Crin

[list][*] Finally get that interdimensional travel working. Spread out the populations between the servers.

Hell no.

Interdimensional travel should never be allowed. the economies and even the leveling rate now on the 2 servers are different and a person who would start on Rk1 and switch to RK2 would have a definate advantage over someone who played the whole time on RK2. There aren't many things FC can do to get me to cancel my account but interdimensional travel would be one of them. I put the time in to make a high level character on each server and i expect if other people wanna play on both they should put in the time too. If you are too worried about twinking your one character to a PvP power on one server then thats your problem not mine,

[Razzitazz]

Amen, speak the truth!

Funcom, get rid of CC, you see how much of that argument had to do with CC ffs?!