Why do some people stop playing when a conflict arises?

[Cherek]

Prokop: Thanks for the answers. Well, exit interviews are probably hard to do since it's pretty hard to know exactly when someone stops playing and to catch them when they do. Since a few years back we do have a short survey that new characters may take part in. It does not ask that particular question though.

Currently I think this forum, and perhaps even more so, our Facebook group, is the best place to get answers from current, and especially former, players. Which is why I started this thread. Perhaps I shall conduct a little survey on FB as well.

As for making conflicts fun. No, not everyone will like it, and if Genesis was a conflict heavy game they would not chose to play this game at all. But as long as we have a free for all PVP game, we should of course aim to improve that part of the game as we should aim to improve all aspect of the game. And perhaps especially the PVP part since it has for a long time not worked that well, and not provided that much fun.

Another option could of course be to restrict PVP to certain areas. Or remove it completely. That is something that's rarely discussed though since "danger" has always been a keyword for Genesis.

[Arcon]

For me it has always been the huge difference in size. I have never been attacked by someone smaller than me, always bigger and usually 2 or more mortal levels bigger. I have attacked bigger people myself but of course it is not as if I could do much.

When you get attacked by someone much bigger than you it makes you feel frustrated when you know you will never have a chance to hurt him/her or ever get even. Why stick around to fight if you know you will loose no matter what you do?

And if a myth killed you and you are a hero/titan, you will never be big enough(unless you are a second that can grind to myth in no time) to get even so why bother with a game where you will never be able to catch up? You will always be on the loosing end in the battles.

[Greneth]

Even if you were to restrict area much like runescape did with the wilderness your still going to have the same issues. With a open free pvp game like Genesis balance is always going to be the biggest and should be the most important issue.

Its for this reason I have never liked the idea of "Elite" guilds or guilds specifically tuned for pvp. It ruins it for everyone else. You cannot RP properly without fear of death and in most times you really cant even retaliate. Now factor in how large we are allowed to become and its even more of a pain.

Properly balance and recode everyone then work on how to keep things fun and flowing.

[Snowrose]

Tibor had the unfortune of being the first death to the bda. he was just going about his day questing got a cool sword and WHAM dead no warning no apologies no chance to even fight back. The other ranger at least had some warning something might be going on.

I can not speak for the bda guy cause i dont know what happened. but It is possible The bda that quit felt the same way perhapse if it was rangers that hit him it might not have caused him to quit cause he would have been expecting rangers. the feeling of being bullied or picked on might have been the thing in both cases.

We also had somone leave gen from roi a few months back due to being ganked by a mage when not expecting it.

in all these cases it was an unexpected hit by a significantly superior player for no apparent reason. even if the guilds were balenced recoded ect if a myth attacks an expert the expert will go squish. and the expert is gonna be like WTF did I do?!

Maybe if when not in a team and oneshotted by a player more than 4 or 5 ranks above you where you cant even tickle them if it just did a cinimatic you get snatched away and droped at nearest safe room or didnt lose any exp/eqipment.

The recoding of the rangers would be nice but it is really not the issue. in fact closing a guild people have been in for 10+ years will lose you more players than a few ganks even if it is temporary.

[Cherek]

For me it has always been the huge difference in size. I have never been attacked by someone smaller than me, always bigger and usually 2 or more mortal levels bigger. I have attacked bigger people myself but of course it is not as if I could do much.

When you get attacked by someone much bigger than you it makes you feel frustrated when you know you will never have a chance to hurt him/her or ever get even. Why stick around to fight if you know you will loose no matter what you do?

And if a myth killed you and you are a hero/titan, you will never be big enough(unless you are a second that can grind to myth in no time) to get even so why bother with a game where you will never be able to catch up? You will always be on the loosing end in the battles.

Agreed. Also, when we had five times the player numbers you could always gang up on the bigger players as well, and many fights were team fights, so even if you were small you could still be of use. Now when even gathering a team of more than two people to do anything is hard, obviously ganging up to fight a myth is much less likely. I think that aspect also makes the smaller players feel even more helpless. That's at least how I felt when I could not keep up in the grind race anymore.

[Cherek]

We also had somone leave gen from roi a few months back due to being ganked by a mage when not expecting it.

We have to remember that in certain guilds you always have to expect you might get attacked because of the guild you picked though?

I must say I have always found it curious when players pick a guild that has clear enemies in the game, and yet get surprised when they are attacked. If someone dislikes PVP, why not simply join one of the many options we have for neutral guilds? Or at least goodie/evil guilds without natural enemies?

That does not solve the problems with size difference and imbalanced guilds of course, and while in this case BDA/ranger are not exactly natural enemies, it's surprisingly often you hear about players quit playing after having been attacked and killed by a _natural_ enemy guild. Perhaps guild leaders could be more clear about that if you decide to join their particular guild, you WILL risk getting killed at any time? Although I assume most of our players know this already. Its a mystery to me!

[Laurel]

until the battle was on Ranger terms (drop brawls, stealing swords, harassing with brawl, etc.) it was all fine - wasn't it?
going to Sanction (autoattack, dragons, hunting NPC's) for a face-to-face fight with 1-3 sizes difference was a stupidity with an expected outcome
last Zoirenna, Peridot and some third Ranger did that was in the 90ies - with loads of ebony-bladed daggers that made a difference back then
back in those days BDA also "donated" quite a lot of swords (majorly 1handed for a reason) to the Rangers - no BDA was killed by Rangers and no Ranger by BDA
the daggers wouldn't make a difference today anymore, so that was just a stupidity to enter the playground of the enemy on his terms

again - multicharers started it and multicharers ended it
Bromen is to blame for being a good RPer of a dominant and evil guild - bad Bro!

[Mersereau]

Laurel, you are messing up the timeline. Those three Rangers to my knowledge had little to do with any Dragonarmy conflict.

High ranking wizards have asked me before why I stopped playing, little has been done to change most of the issues I have with Genesis. I don't play games to be frustrated or waste time. If things aren't getting fixed by wizards investing time, there's little point in my investing time. It's like being in a bad relationship. If there is no hope that change is going to come in a timely manner, it's insane to stick around and be miserable. I've got a whole stack of unplayed games on my Steam account, along with an MMO I am currently playing.

[Icarus]

Nemi is a hero/titan so she keeps yapping, not caring/afraid to die again. And it is not a problem to die when you are smaller, a hero or around, but the bigger you are the greater the death penalty becomes. When you are a myth size and die, then - if you do not script - the recovery could take months.

Even if it is true in some way that I've stated I'm not afraid to die, it doesn't mean I don't care. If I have to die five times and that results in one of the bigger enemies dies.

until the battle was on Ranger terms (drop brawls, stealing swords, harassing with brawl, etc.) it was all fine - wasn't it? going to Sanction (autoattack, dragons, hunting NPC's) for a face-to-face fight with 1-3 sizes difference was a stupidity with an expected outcome last Zoirenna, Peridot and some third Ranger did that was in the 90ies - with loads of ebony-bladed daggers that made a difference back then back in those days BDA also "donated" quite a lot of swords (majorly 1handed for a reason) to the Rangers - no BDA was killed by Rangers and no Ranger by BDA the daggers wouldn't make a difference today anymore, so that was just a stupidity to enter the playground of the enemy on his terms again - multicharers started it and multicharers ended it Bromen is to blame for being a good RPer of a dominant and evil guild - bad Bro!

Actually, Laurel, that I died in Sanction (without any warning to leave, as some have claimed) was all nice, considering this seemed to be the only way to get Bromen to leave te camp where he was hiding. The fact that we killed NPC's, there were NO dragons, no hunting by NPC's going on etc seems to be lost on you here.

However, what happened in Sanction isn't what this thread is about, this thread is about how people quit over unfairness in the game. That Ilrahil quit over getting killed probably didn't surprise many, and that small people get killed in war won't surprise anyone, but Tibor wasn't killed in a war, he was killed in what seems to be a moronic style of playing portrayed by a few players the last years, about attacking and killing people of oposite guilds "just for spite". People known for doing such things are easy to list: Cassius, Tristram and Ilrahil.

The game can survive a loss of a player once in a while, sure, IF we have an equally steady income of new or returning players. We don't. If we keep losing players, the game will be left with a few who run around on scripts and hardly even that. Where is the fun then?

And for those of you who whine about "but when we're this and that big, recovery take so long"... Well, easy fix. If you kill someone who are 70% or less of your own size, you lose enough to place you at his size as well, at least it'd make pvp more fair, and stop assholes from ganking the smallest players.

[OgreToyBoy]

There wont be a fix for this, if the people in charged wished for a change it would've occured already.
Ranger's might've ended up better if a wizard played one, but they prefer the other side.