Friday with(out) Means - Aug. 7th, 2009: how did this get here i am not good with com

[Xantitide]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Eternal Twilight

[tlaski]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Cleopatra's Viewpoint

[tlaski]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Dancing Bear

/me throws a dollar bill

[PhoenixOfAges]

This is not about AI vs the human brain. This is about tactics vs tools.

...

Good stuff. A more robust AI would of course be good. Another way to get at least some of that effect would be to make certain elements of a PF variable so you don't deal with the same thing every time. It'd make things more interesting and mean there's a set group of certain profs required as you'd have different needs each time. There'd be no specific guide to such a PF and you may not know what you're getting into until it's on top of you. Add wide area roaming mobs rather than mostly waiting mobs and you add another element that could bring some "oh crap" moments. Then there could be multiple random elements at the same place to make it even less predicable.

The number of mobs and such could scale depending on the number of participants with it locked to only let in those original people once they go in or only let in that many. This way you can't just throw numbers at it to make it easier. It scaling could still make it possible to do with less so you don't need a lot of people. Although by changing some aspects on how you get loot as I mentioned in a prior post here it wouldn't really matter how many you go in with like it does now, or at least as much. So as long as they can all pull their weight in some way the more the merrier.

Capable human opponents are all well and good but you can't always get either and not everyone goes for that sort of thing. More unpredictable and challenging PvM aspects should be possible and would always be available.

[Susi]

How about 'Smokers Lounge'. Kind of a reference to the fixer quest, perhaps some fixers know this?

[Eventsbyjill]

and last question do you think this night club is intrested most people ,do you really belive that this club is gona be like tower pvp places hard to move form lag? hell no .yeah i know evry game needs some socializaation or what ever but you guys have more more serious problems and you guys spending your time on night club?

Babek you never know.. maybe they'll make all of the main cities 25% suppression and that would encourage non-pvpers to go to the clubs to idle and give you pvpers an easier playground to run around in all of the time, without flags

[Ninj00]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Teh Lulz

if thats already been taken then..... uhh


ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Trouble

[Gastastic]

It may be because, as far, all PvP content (even if you include PvE as PvP) fails to address the RP community.

The Storyline is beginning to get very shaky, involvement from FC is non-existent (expect to Switch Borealis from Neutral to Omni without any notice or to put a Hate mongering CEO who's appeared in public twice and only destroys the bonds of the RP community) as far as I can tell.
...

You appear to be RP'ing while you talk about the state of RP'ing in the game. This makes you look insane. Properly done you can RP as you play the game by simply playing the game. No need to listen to any self-designated 'actor' - Funcom's or otherwise - blathering from a dais and expecting rapt attention from the world. In fact, the RP flag should instantly PVP flag you too so people could vote on your performance with weapons... in the imaginary world.

[Xyphos]

Since RkTim picketed the FC offices to have this made, I highly suggest that it should be (kinda) named after him.
NIGHT CLUB ENTRY:
"Club Mitkr"
(RkTim backwards)

[Mereditche]

While incentivizing people to team by offering increased loot chances isn't a bad idea in the slightest, it's also more or less one of those "band-aid" style fixes we really want to avoid. The main root of the problem is that an instance which was designed for six people can be done with less - Therein lies the real issue.

I don't think this is the real issue. As long as you make instances with super low droprate on one uber item people will be inclined to do the instance with the smallest team possible to increase their roll chances. However hard you make it, people will find ways around it. At the moment the doc+enfo combo works on every instance. Since mobs hit for 1/3th of a normal players health and are immune to their toolset, you reduce the options to a few combos. DD isn't really needed anymore since you start in the boss-room, reducing usefullness of most professions. Btw, ultra low dropchance on 1 item is also a band-aid for the lack of 'repeatable' end-game content.

There are many ways to give an incentive to teaming, while still forcing players to do an instance multiple times. Examples:
- something like PhoenixOfAges suggested: make people collect 10 TS items. On every boss kill one ts item spawns in team members inventory or the boss drops as many items as players in team.
- Or add a quest that sends you in to kill the boss multiple times 1st time: scan the bosses death body, 2nd time: boss didn't stay dead somehow, go take tissue sample, 3th time: we think we found a way to perma-kill the boss, use this nano when he reaches 10% health, etc...
- More team members increase drop chance: 2 members = 10% chance, 4 members = 30% chance, 6 members = 60% chance.

In all these examples there isn't a drawback to filling up a team. Adding more members doesn't reduce your chance to get the item you need.

[Figgsa]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Means Cabaret

[Chrys]

This is not about AI vs the human brain. This is about tactics vs tools.

It is because of this that PvM fails to be challenging, because NPCs have a set toolkit and no tactical mind. You added sneaking mobs, and those are a surprise but they still attack when they first see you. A tactic would be for one to pop out and fight you while the other waits for you to appear low in HP and then blast you from behind.

Make the content hard so the 'perfect' team is required and people spend all their time on LFT trying to get that 'perfect' team. When it suddenly dawns on them they actually spend only 10% of their online time actually playing the game they quit.

Make the content easier so casual teams can do it and all the good players quickly round each other up and form farm teams for easy profit while leaving the casuals and lowbies to spend all their time on LFT trying to get that team. When it suddenly dawns on them they actually spend only 10% of their online time actually playing the game they quit. Then the farmers get everything they need in the game and quit too.

You need a balance of pick-up-and-play content with reasonable effort-to-reward ratio. You need some tougher challenges with really really worthwhile lewtz (hai mudflation) to reward teamwork. The problem is FC are trying not to introduce too much mudflation so put in incremental rewards, while at the same time trying to introduce a truckload of new content. Result? Lots of grind for incremental reward. Recipe for fail.

Of course this is all just opinion, but I continue to see other games with computer AI that would beat many so called "skilled PvPers" with ease and it's perhaps a blind hope but a hope never the less that AO can become such one day. PvP doesn't have to be the driving force behind a game, it's just the easiest one. Much easier to make items and give them to people and say "you make it happen" instead of making an AI to "make it happen".

Such as? Other MMOs have 90% of their content on 'farm' status within weeks of the content being out. But they also have more hardcore guilds that tackle the content on a regular basis. When I was playing WAR, I was in a guild that had 2 raidgroups on separate locks. New members had to queue to be 'substitutes' on these raidgroups until an older member got all their phats. They ran the raids twice weekly at specific times and dates. Guild officers all had several people's RL cellphones and MSN to call people up if they were late. Content got done very efficiently.

The raids were tougher than AO raids, but not because of AI. It was down to operating the tricks like a platform game (when boss does X, players must Y - which is what FC are copying furiously of late. It's not real AI, it's pseudo platform game genre tricks as a shortcut for providing real AI where the boss actually behaves differently depending, e.g. on the composition of players facing it). Though city PQs (as they're called) which involved mass raiding mixed with PVP were impossible if there were more than a handful of opposition because the mobs were extremely tough to divide your warband (RI) into groups to deal with PVP and PVM at the same time.

[stormranger]

While incentivizing people to team by offering increased loot chances isn't a bad idea in the slightest, it's also more or less one of those "band-aid" style fixes we really want to avoid. The main root of the problem is that an instance which was designed for six people can be done with less - Therein lies the real issue. The effort we're putting forth in regards to the profession balancing is designed to effect both PvM and PvP across the board, hopefully making PvM content more in-line with its original designs and, thusly, more in-line with its originally intended team requirements. =)

the root problem is not that the instance can be done with less than the original intended number of people because you have to design the contend that a team/raid of casual players can solve it an so a group of twinks can always solve it with less people. so the only way to motivate people to team is that for example there is a higher rate of drop with more people in the team and that there are items you still want after the starting rush of new contend/items is over and that are only obtainable in that place(maybe some items you can trade in for credits/tokens/vp etc) so people want to repeat the contend a good example is sector 42 in that playfield the only loot that is interesting are the acdc/bots and maybe the resetpoints all other loot is also obtainable through the normal ai playfields so the motivation when you are in the north or east group is gone.
an other problem is that the balancing of pvm stuff is quit often not solveable with a normal team in the " intended" levelrange for example i doubt that a normal team of 130-160 players are able to complete the "Dr. Koumas" with the Ruins Protector without highlevel help or that a team of 160-205 can complete alappaa.

[Kintaii]

Hey guys - Just wanted to pop in and say that I'm really enjoying seeing the debates popping up. I love conversations about design decisions - Always really interesting stuff to me. Unfortunately, as much as I wish I could join back in at the moment, I wanted to let you all know that I'm gonna be kinda busy over the next few days (have some "real" work to get finished), so my time for forums replies is going to be a bit diminished. I may be able to sneak in a reply here and there in the evenings, though. Keep up the conversations. =)

[Bonghigs]

I'm assuming that this will be lost in all the spam and has been posted before, but i wanted to post it here in a less obnoxious way.

I am just wondering why there is time being spent on a new night club for players to hang out in? As it is, the current clubs are almost empty the majority of the time and it just seems that there are a slew of other bugs/items that could get attention instead of this. I would love to hear your (FC's) view on this and why this club seems to be getting a lot of press/attention lately.

Thanks.

Quoting myself (i know, forum faux pas!) in hopes that Kintaii sees it and can provide some insight. *crosses fingers*

[Maxflier]

ENTRY FOR NIGHTCLUB NAME CONTEST: Rapture

[Ebondevil]

I'm assuming that this will be lost in all the spam and has been posted before, but i wanted to post it here in a less obnoxious way.

I am just wondering why there is time being spent on a new night club for players to hang out in? As it is, the current clubs are almost empty the majority of the time and it just seems that there are a slew of other bugs/items that could get attention instead of this. I would love to hear your (FC's) view on this and why this club seems to be getting a lot of press/attention lately.

Thanks.

Asked before, kind of, and answered once already:

We don't need another nightclub, stop wasting valuable time on it!

But according to who? I mean, you personally may not particularly care about a new nightclub and that's cool - Not every bit of content that goes into game is going to be used or appreciated by everyone. That's alright, we're ok with that, and if a nightclub isn't what you're into then no worries. But in the absence of other things for our artists to work on at the moment (outside of the new heads/body smoothing, which we've gotta let them take a break from now and again before they threaten to leap off a tall building somewhere), we figured tasking them with something fun, funky and interesting would be of value (and help manage their sanity a bit) - Plus, in the construction of the night club, they've learned a lot of very valuable and interesting techniques that will be of a lot of help when the time comes for them to start creating assets in other playfields.

There'll always be things in game that certain groups of people appreciate more than others - I'm sure, say, the Gridstream guys would probably say that the new nightclub is a good addition, alongside various roleplayers in the game. Not everything has to have a new raid boss in it to be a valuable addition, afterall, and sometimes it's nice to toss in some social stuff alongside the combat. Besides, it's shiny. I like shiny. XD

[Eventsbyjill]

Kintaii,

I'm curious to know what funcom's stance is on the very commonplace practice of selling lootrights on endgame gear that drops in instances. Is this working as intended? If so, why? If not, what are your plans to fix the issue?

[Kintaii]

Kintaii,

I'm curious to know what funcom's stance is on the very commonplace practice of selling lootrights on endgame gear that drops in instances. Is this working as intended? If so, why? If not, what are your plans to fix the issue?

Well, as far as I myself am concerned, if someone kills something then they have the right to decide what they want to do with the loot. If that means keeping it for themselves, selling it to someone else, or just letting it rot - They killed the mob, it's their loot, and they can choose for themselves what to do with it.

That said, policing player actions isn't my particular job, nor is it anything I really have very much to do with in general - It's been a long, long time since I answered my last petition in ARK, and as a designer I don't deal much with creating in-game policies (that's more the realm of our Customer Service department). So for an official answer I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy - All I can offer is my opinion. Might be a better question to ask Means after he returns. =)

[Eventsbyjill]

Well, as far as I myself am concerned, if someone kills something then they have the right to decide what they want to do with the loot. If that means keeping it for themselves, selling it to someone else, or just letting it rot - They killed the mob, it's their loot, and they can choose for themselves what to do with it.

That said, policing player actions isn't my particular job, nor is it anything I really have very much to do with in general - It's been a long, long time since I answered my last petition in ARK, and as a designer I don't deal much with creating in-game policies (that's more the realm of our Customer Service department). So for an official answer I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy - All I can offer is my opinion. Might be a better question to ask Means after he returns. =)

Thanks for your response. Its not at all what I was hoping to hear but appreciate that you took the time to respond. I posed the same question to Means so I'll be curious to hear if he feels the same.