Genesis Forums

Kas wrote:Let's say we set a limit of champ for the sake of argument. For those above, what other gameplay options beside gearfarming and statgrowth do you suggest? I suggested lateral growth. Other ideas?

Endgame content is another.

Suddenly collecting gear would be more of a challenge and the end-game is guild politics and war. Lets say that two guilds go into war and the winner (body count of both enemy NPCs and players) have a small but noticeable boost in guild abilities.

People would collect the gear not to go on endless script runs at TT/Mithas/Qualinesty/Faerun but to raid each others guild halls to slay enemy guards and its members, with each kill they get a bit closer to the win and lets say that after two or three days of war they get tagged as the winning fraction and gets their boost. The loosing guild could either take the loss and give up making the winner loose its boost, it would only work during war, or start fighting back to lower the boost the enemy have gained and to win to gain the boost themself. Each kill(enemy NPC guards would have less impact than a player and the size/toughness of the guard/player would also count) would lower or raise the boost. The boost would of course have a cap.
If two or more guilds would go into war against the same guild(alliances) the boost would double for the guild that is alone and split between the alliance. War could be started by officially going into a state of war(guild council could do this) or just by attacking a guild. If a number of kills of a guilds guard would be killed by another guild the state of war would start automatically and the body counter would start. If one guild do not have any active members so to stop other guilds to use that to gain the war-boost the council of that guild could retreat from the war and give up and if one side do that any agressive action made against that guild for the next week or would count as a (-) in body count in future war for the agressor. But during that week the guild that retreated would have a small but noticeable loss in guild abilities.
For example, some knights decide to collect HSC from AAs guards and after the fifth kill they would have started a war. And there are no active AAs around and one of their officer wakes up for a moment and see this and decides to withdraw from the war the knights would stop farming for HSC at the AA hideout or they would start at a negative body count in their next war. But after a week they could start again.

This would create more PvP and guild wars, people that have reached the cap can still improve their effectiveness, there would be alliances to take down very strong guilds and broken alliances to gain full war-boosts, more guild politics to try to gain the maximum amount of boost for less risk while unactive/weaker guilds could either join an alliance or withdraw (with a small penalty for a short time).

There you have a fun end-game for people I think.

The Achievers thoroughly won Genesis, with the Killers, Socializers and Explorers being left far behind.


Look at what the game rewards for PvP, Roleplay and Exploring:
PvP
Reward:
The game does not reward you for PvP'ing, except perhaps the "joy" of knowing the opponent lost gear, components, Xp
Requirement:
Full attention and reactions, often extensive knowledge of the games item and locations to ensure a kill

Roleplay
Reward:
The game does not reward you for roleplaying
In the past it _could_ give you access to "elite" guilds that were overpowered solely based on their supposed "elite-ness".
Requirement:
Creativity, fast thinking, full attention (cannot be scripted) and decent typing and english skills.

Exploring
Reward:
You get a tiny tiny bit of Xp for each new location you find.
You might also find a new quest and maybe even solve it if you can guess the syntax. Of course you could also just get the quest solutions from a friend, if you are lucky.
Requirement:
Full attention (cannot be scripted), perhaps mapmaking/registrering finds


In contrast - Killing mobs for Xp
Reward:
Stats, levels, guildstat, guildtitles, ranking placements, money, gear, PvP and PvE power, enables you to never need to rely on a team.
Requirement:
Minimum of attention (can be completely automated)

I know some people will insist on calling the activity that rewards the most and require the least for "hard work" and so forth, but really - It doesn't seem that hard work when compared to other activities in the game.



The community is made up of the type of players that it appeals to the most, which should make it no surprise that roleplay and PvP is rare or non-existant. But it probably would not hurt to try and make the game appeal to other types too.

Makfly wrote:The Achievers thoroughly won Genesis, with the Killers, Socializers and Explorers being left far behind.

Look at what the game rewards for PvP, Roleplay and Exploring:
PvP
Reward:
The game does not reward you for PvP'ing, except perhaps the "joy" of knowing the opponent lost gear, components, Xp
Requirement:
Full attention and reactions, often extensive knowledge of the games item and locations to ensure a kill

Roleplay
Reward:
The game does not reward you for roleplaying
In the past it _could_ give you access to "elite" guilds that were overpowered solely based on their supposed "elite-ness".
Requirement:
Creativity, fast thinking, full attention (cannot be scripted) and decent typing and english skills.

Exploring
Reward:
You get a tiny tiny bit of Xp for each new location you find.
You might also find a new quest and maybe even solve it if you can guess the syntax. Of course you could also just get the quest solutions from a friend, if you are lucky.
Requirement:
Full attention (cannot be scripted), perhaps mapmaking/registrering finds

In contrast - Killing mobs for Xp
Reward:
Stats, levels, guildstat, guildtitles, ranking placements, money, gear, PvP and PvE power, enables you to never need to rely on a team.
Requirement:
Minimum of attention (can be completely automated)

I know some people will insist on calling the activity that rewards the most and require the least for "hard work" and so forth, but really - It doesn't seem that hard work when compared to other activities in the game.

The community is made up of the type of players that it appeals to the most, which should make it no surprise that roleplay and PvP is rare or non-existant. But it probably would not hurt to try and make the game appeal to other types too.

The question here is, how do we solve some of those? It's not as easy as it seems. Rewarding RP is the hardest part of all since we can't really afford doing it the Ultima style, where a GM would observe players as they interact and distribute xp rewards based on their RP performance for example. It would be very roleplayish but at the same time it requires some serious, dedicated, objective and fair manpower. It's pretty hard to reward RP in any automated way so the only other real option we have is player-based rewards. Perhaps some form of "commendation" system could be put in place, so that good RPers could be eligible for some form of a tangible reward.

Rewarding exploration is fairly easy to do, although it would take time to implement - introducing hidden areas that people can find and which contain some nice things for example, and I'm not talking "hidden" as in Temple of Chemosh but rather long, tedious series of paths you need to take to find them.

The big thing could also be reducing the rewards you get for killing mobs so it's not as attractive. Perhaps doing it the typical game way, where you simply don't get any reward for killing stuff that's smaller than you (this serves both as an added challenge and a way to limit people's size - sure, you can still grind stuff like the yeti, Balrog and such, but I don't think it's a viable way of making progress).

Rewards for RP does still exist as in several guild it's still how you advance. Not by grinding.

Scops, Pots, MM and SU still rely pretty heavily on RP for advancement (I think??). Thats the impression I get anyway. Maybe rangers should be included in that group too?

But in the past most guilds did reward RP, and that reward made RP useful, and it made people bother about it. That reward is I think what we lost somewhere, and mainly why RP isnt as important today. I think that we moved towards more open guilds, open joining process etc is the biggest problem. But... it was something many called for because we got less players, and many guilds became hard to join due to leadership inactivity etc, and the wizards listened. But looking back now, I am not sure it was a good idea. It probably seemed like one, but it would probably have been better to ensure active leadership in guilds, similar to what Calians now have, than opening up guilds for everyone to join and giving up RP in the process. I think RP in those guilds took a big blow when we did... like Calians, Knights, DAs for instance.

I think if all guilds got a system where inactive guild leaders could be voted from their position, and if more guilds once again required a little effort to join, then we would at least give the guild members who wanted to bring RP back to their guilds a fighting chance. Sure, there would still be those that didnt bother, but at least those who wants to can do it, by taking charge of a guild, by being active leaders who set a good example, and by controlling who joins the guild. Maybe we dont have enough RP-players around who's interested in that, but maybe we do? Fix the inactive leadership issues, and make it harder to join guilds again, and I think it's at least possible to make RP mean something in more guilds again.

But leadership problems MUST be fixed first. Else we end up with the same problem again where people are unable to join guilds...

Kiara wrote:Rewards for RP does still exist as in several guild it's still how you advance. Not by grinding.

Scops, Pots, MM and SU still rely pretty heavily on RP for advancement (I think??). Thats the impression I get anyway. Maybe rangers should be included in that group too?

But in the past most guilds did reward RP, and that reward made RP useful, and it made people bother about it. That reward is I think what we lost somewhere, and mainly why RP isnt as important today. I think that we moved towards more open guilds, open joining process etc is the biggest problem. But... it was something many called for because we got less players, and many guilds became hard to join due to leadership inactivity etc, and the wizards listened. But looking back now, I am not sure it was a good idea. It probably seemed like one, but it would probably have been better to ensure active leadership in guilds, similar to what Calians now have, than opening up guilds for everyone to join and giving up RP in the process. I think RP in those guilds took a big blow when we did... like Calians, Knights, DAs for instance.

I think if all guilds got a system where inactive guild leaders could be voted from their position, and if more guilds once again required a little effort to join, then we would at least give the guild members who wanted to bring RP back to their guilds a fighting chance. Sure, there would still be those that didnt bother, but at least those who wants to can do it, by taking charge of a guild, by being active leaders who set a good example, and by controlling who joins the guild. Maybe we dont have enough RP-players around who's interested in that, but maybe we do? Fix the inactive leadership issues, and make it harder to join guilds again, and I think it's at least possible to make RP mean something in more guilds again.

But leadership problems MUST be fixed first. Else we end up with the same problem again where people are unable to join guilds...

I would very much like this. With that said, however, my feeling is that this requires an AOP team that's willing to respond to mortal affairs. Otherwise, we risk situations like those that were the other side of the coin as to why the changes were made, such as the "Good Ol' Boy" clubs like the Secret Society used to be. It was near impossible to get into the Kender guild before, because people would find out a vote was taking place and log in just to vote nay on any new member.

Amorana wrote:It was near impossible to get into the Kender guild before, because people would find out a vote was taking place and log in just to vote nay on any new member.

this before is when exactly? :> (I don't think I've ever voted nay in any voting and been there for like past 10 years)
imho the reward for RPing kender is almost unplayable skillset

Kvator wrote:

Amorana wrote:It was near impossible to get into the Kender guild before, because people would find out a vote was taking place and log in just to vote nay on any new member.

this before is when exactly? :> (I don't think I've ever voted nay in any voting and been there for like past 10 years)
imho the reward for RPing kender is almost unplayable skillset

Well, I was in there with you for quite some time, in another form. And there were plenty of votes where this occurred. We went through a long period of being unable to actually get someone in without being lucky and having a bunch of old fogeys not realize a vote was happening. This was approximately... 14-8 years ago.

In fact, when I was first a kender, in this other form, it took 3 or 4 votes to get me in... Because this was happening.

rly? mby I am remembering something wrong, but I was pretty sure there were maybe 2-3 candidates turned down during my (pretty long) period there

Kvator wrote:rly? mby I am remembering something wrong, but I was pretty sure there were maybe 2-3 candidates turned down during my (pretty long) period there

Well, I'd try to bring in some verification, but the old guard is long gone... Lewina, Belnop, Martooth, Myrset, Nyneve...

I miss them.