easy_lee
07-10-2015, 09:29 PM
Warning: Long post.
First, let me preface this by saying that this server is awesome. Rogean and Co. have done great work, and it's been a terrific experience for me to play here.
That said, this server needs to change. It's become too stagnant, and people have grown too disgruntled. We have a culture of players who complain, talk crap, RMT, stab each other in the back, and can't even be arsed to participate in GM events. We have GMs who spend too much of their time dealing with bullcrap petitions, RMT, and LNS abuse. These things can be resolved.
Most of the updates I propose are simple, but would have a huge beneficial impact on the server. I suggest easy methods to code all of them here, with the administration's time in mind. Being a software engineer myself, I have a good idea of what is involved with these changes.
I fully expect troll posts suggesting that I need to get better; my criticisms have nothing to do with difficulty. I fully expect posts saying that things will never change; I don't believe that, because the administration have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to fix problems. I intend these suggestions to save the GMs time, encourage PvP, and improve the community.
Why We Need Change
Player communities are a product of game mechanics, not something that just happens. The game produces the community. P1999 red has a stagnant, RMT-filled, zerg-happy, PvP-frightened, disgruntled player base. Despite the efforts of the administration and excellent players such as Andain, most Red players are whiny, pissed off assholes.
High level players are disgruntled. Good PvP happens sometimes, but everyone has to deal with constant plug wars, rules violations, LNS abuse, RMT, and all manner of bullshit. Backstabbing is common, nihilism more so. Remember that GM event in Dagnor's Cauldron, where players griefed each other rather than even trying to kill the mobs? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Low level players and newbies can't trust anyone because anyone can attack anyone. They deal with gankers while trying to level. The efforts of high level buffers, twink killers, and general bros are not enough. Rerolling because your class turns out to suck in PvP is common, particularly for casters.
Only some spells are even usable, leading to major imbalance in favor of the casters who get them. Melees dominate PvP due to a broken, unintuitive resist system. To make matters worse, server stagnation has lead to extremely high, non-classic resist levels.
Every time anyone suggests anything, some motherfucker says "not classic" as if it's actually true or means anything. Most neckbeards don't even remember the classic game. I do, and I know how to fix this server to be more like it. It's time to act.
Here are some things which would be better for the server and community. Implementation of these ideas will lead to a better community, less work for the administration in the long run, less bullshit, and more interesting PvP. I base this on my knowledge of game theory, twenty years of experience with MMOs, and several years of experience with this server.
I've ordered these changes by development difficulty. Most of these suggestions reuse existing code, and none of them are as difficult as some of the fantastic work our administration has done.
Get Rid of YT: Very Easy
It's stupid epeen bullshit. Nobody likes it except twink griefers. Nobody cares. Having it encourages plugging and running from fights just to maintain a stat that doesn't matter. And furthermore, YT only tracks killing blows, not everyone who took part in the PvP. For those who care, it's not even classic. YT makes this game more like some bullshit MOBA where everyone wants to run from fights to protect their meaningless stats. YT makes people want to play shadow knights and wizards (who can get killing blows) rather than enchanters or clerics (who usually can't), leading to an imbalance of classes. It's got to go.
How to Stop RMT: Very Easy
This one's easy. Let's take an item which is RMT'd often, AoN for example. Just make it No Drop so it can't be RMT'd. It's that easy.
To those who say that RMTers can still allow the person to loot the item, yes that's true. But in order for that to work, the RMTers need the cooperation of one or more groups. That's really difficult, as anyone can spill the beans and most high level players don't want to get banned by Sirken (pras). And groups are much easier to catch than individuals. This change is easy, would improve the server, and would save the administration a ton of time.
But it's not classic: neither is the EXP bonus, or the fact that the server has been around so long that there are hundreds more of these kinds of items floating around than there ever were live.
LNS Fix: Very Easy
Why the Current System Doesn't Work
It can be abused, and often is. GMs spend far too much of their time on LNS petitions, trying to see what happened. The system relies on users to both know and follow the rules, which is flawed. We can make it better.
The Fix
Typing /LNS makes your corpse appear at your bind point and prevents you from moving, casting, attacking, or being attacked for one hour (LNS Root). Summoning the corpse would be easy, while the LNS Root would need to be a custom debuff (stun + change faction to something nothing can attack would do it).
Preventing Abuse / Spying
Players can no longer bind in dungeons or heavy PvP zones (utilize Timorous Deep code). LNS cannot be used in those zones.
Benefits
No more bullshit LNS petitions.
No more LNS abuse.
Bind camping is impossible, as the person can just /LNS.
GMs are already generous about restoring lost corpses, so this is not a big deal in that regard.
Can't be used to spy since you can't bind or LNS in dungeons or major PvP zones.
Saves the GMs a lot of time.
Saves the GMs a lot of time.
But it's not classic: neither are half of the PNP rules. Besides, something that reduces bullshit petitions, saves the GMs time, and saves us from pointless OOC text is worth it.
Simple Resists Change for Competitive PvP: Easy
Why the Current Resists System Doesn't Work
Casting a spell and having it fully resist is no fun and is swingy. Having high resistance and failing to even partially resist a spell is just as shitty. Some spells work in PvP while most have stupidly high failure rates. Casting a spell yields one of two results:
It goes through and the person who didn't resist it is pissed off at RNG. This can happen even if your resists are maxed, which is frustrating.
It does nothing and the caster is pissed, because he just wasted his time to accomplish nothing. This is the reason why casters are considered inferior to melee for PvP.
This is shitty and makes PvP less versatile and interesting than it should be. This is some swingy Pokémon bullshit. (Half the mechanics in Pokémon are random and most moves are useless. This is not a favorable comparison.)
The Fix
Instead, make all resists partial. Max resist grants up to 90% reduced damage for DD and DOTs, and up to 90% reduced duration for debuffs.
Example: a spell normally does 100 magic damage and stuns for 5 seconds. You have enough magic resist to grant 80% resistance. The spell does 20 damage to you and stuns you for 1 second.
Formula: Damage or duration = (Base damage or duration) - (Base damage or duration) * (Resist / Resist Cap)
Optional: cap it at the base values.
Benefits
Easy to code.
Easy to understand.
Much simpler than the current resist code. No special conditions needed for specific spells.
Casters are a threat regardless of resists.
Resists are beneficial regardless of how much you have.
Both spells and resists work every time, not just sometimes. This is much better for competitive PvP since players can make plans that aren't subject to RNG.
More spells can be used in PvP, making PvP more interesting.
All casters are viable in PvP, not just some, making the game more balanced.
Same formula works on negative resists and spells which work off resist - 100 or similar. Again, it's simple and easy.
But it's not classic: neither is the current resist code, or the stupidly high resistance totals on geared players (reminder: Kunark lasted less than a year on live before Velious).
But then casters can land X spell: is that a problem? Most of the worst shit already lands (such as Whirl till you Hurl). If you have high resists, these spells won't be nearly as effective as normal, as opposed to most spells either working 100% or not at all.
Fix Plugging: Easy
It's stupid and no one likes it. Make the player appear on the other side of the zone LD and killable for the next minute. Just update the server code to complete the zoning process when people go linkdead.
If you can't tell where the player was going, then just do this simple check: if you know the zone, load them over. If you don't know the zone, eject them back into the zone they left from at the zoneline. Easy fix. And players won't get stuck in limbo anymore, which is better for the server.
But I like to plug: nobody else likes it when you do, and it's a cheap-ass PvP-avoidance tactic. If you want to avoid PvP, go play on Blue.
Update Level Ranges to Enable More PvP: Easy
Why the Current Resists System Doesn't Work
Finding people you can PvP with becomes more difficult the higher level you become. Too often a group will be attacked by a player who is in range of some of them but not others. This is extremely annoying. I want to PvP, dammit; the server should let me.
The Fix
You can PvP with anyone of a level you could group with, meaning everyone in the same dungeon can usually PvP. This reuses the grouping formula and would be downright easy.
To avoid major level advantages, normalize hits and resists: make players equally likely to hit each other and resist each other's spells regardless of level. Add a condition to the hit and resist formulas: if attacking another player, do whichever of the following is easiest based on the current formula used:
Current formula uses level: use the target's level for the hit / resist formula. Or, alternatively, just remove level from the formula entirely for PvP attacks and spells.
Current formula uses defense: use defense cap for the target's class at your current level in place of the target's actual defense .
This alone, even without the level range fix, would make PvP between different level players much more balanced. It's not fun to have an advantage / disadvantage just based on level, so remove it.
Factions Server: Moderate (big change but uses existing code, very little is new)
Wipe the current and restart with faction PvP rules. Each faction may attack the others but not its own.
Evils
Troll, Ogre, Dark Elf
No monks, paladins, or bards.
Best shadow knights, warriors, and arguably the best shamans.
Fewest race choices, but overall best racials.
Goods
Wood Elf, High Elf, Half-Elf, Human, Dwarf, Barbarian
Every class available, and pretty decent race choices for all.
Most race choices, but overall worst racial abilities
Unaligned / Neutral
Gnome, Halfling, Erudite, Iksar
Weak warrior types, no bards
Best monks.
Most casters have small size advantage.
For people who already have their epic, add ability to transfer character. Character appears at level 1 on new server, but has a token in inventory that can be traded for epic at the appropriate level. Token trades to final NPC for epic (add as alternative to the other items).
Why Faction PvP?
Faction PvP encourages people to make ties with and develop loyalty to their faction. People will help new players joining their faction to strengthen the faction as a whole. Each faction has advantages and disadvantages, unlike most MMOs, which is both very cool and makes faction choice a meaningful decision.
The difficulty of this change would be purely logistical. Setting the game so that players of different factions may attack one another could utilize the existing faction code. Just give each of the three its own hidden faction, like the animal faction, and set to threatening / amiable accordingly.
This could be a step towards solving the problems with ShowEQ. Something to look into would be hiding other faction members from the client, though doing so may be more difficult than it's worth.
Benefits
Kunark only went on for eight months during live, not years. A reset will bring things back to how they actually used to be (classic).
A server reset will make having gear matter again.
Factions mean you know who you can trust. People don't get invited to a group and then ganked afterwards by the same people.
Encourages people to help out members of their faction.
You don't deal with bullshit grief tells just for killing someone.
Factions make PvP interesting, since each faction has advantages.
You don't lose your epic, unlike most server reset ideas.
Will make RMTers ragequit / an hero.
People have been asking for a reset for years.
Would be a huge step towards fixing the community.
But my pixels: getting pixels is more interesting than having them. I've had plenty of years to get my pixels and I think a fresh start, considering all of the great work the administration has done with bug fixes and such, would make the server more fun than it's ever been.
But I just bought AoN for $500: you are the #1 thing wrong with the server.
Why are Iksar on the same side as the neuts, rather than evil?: Because they don't like anyone and had to pick the side that none of the other races like. In addition, because adding Iksar to the evil faction would make that faction the clear best, leading to everyone playing an evil like we've seen happen before (http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php).
First, let me preface this by saying that this server is awesome. Rogean and Co. have done great work, and it's been a terrific experience for me to play here.
That said, this server needs to change. It's become too stagnant, and people have grown too disgruntled. We have a culture of players who complain, talk crap, RMT, stab each other in the back, and can't even be arsed to participate in GM events. We have GMs who spend too much of their time dealing with bullcrap petitions, RMT, and LNS abuse. These things can be resolved.
Most of the updates I propose are simple, but would have a huge beneficial impact on the server. I suggest easy methods to code all of them here, with the administration's time in mind. Being a software engineer myself, I have a good idea of what is involved with these changes.
I fully expect troll posts suggesting that I need to get better; my criticisms have nothing to do with difficulty. I fully expect posts saying that things will never change; I don't believe that, because the administration have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to fix problems. I intend these suggestions to save the GMs time, encourage PvP, and improve the community.
Why We Need Change
Player communities are a product of game mechanics, not something that just happens. The game produces the community. P1999 red has a stagnant, RMT-filled, zerg-happy, PvP-frightened, disgruntled player base. Despite the efforts of the administration and excellent players such as Andain, most Red players are whiny, pissed off assholes.
High level players are disgruntled. Good PvP happens sometimes, but everyone has to deal with constant plug wars, rules violations, LNS abuse, RMT, and all manner of bullshit. Backstabbing is common, nihilism more so. Remember that GM event in Dagnor's Cauldron, where players griefed each other rather than even trying to kill the mobs? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Low level players and newbies can't trust anyone because anyone can attack anyone. They deal with gankers while trying to level. The efforts of high level buffers, twink killers, and general bros are not enough. Rerolling because your class turns out to suck in PvP is common, particularly for casters.
Only some spells are even usable, leading to major imbalance in favor of the casters who get them. Melees dominate PvP due to a broken, unintuitive resist system. To make matters worse, server stagnation has lead to extremely high, non-classic resist levels.
Every time anyone suggests anything, some motherfucker says "not classic" as if it's actually true or means anything. Most neckbeards don't even remember the classic game. I do, and I know how to fix this server to be more like it. It's time to act.
Here are some things which would be better for the server and community. Implementation of these ideas will lead to a better community, less work for the administration in the long run, less bullshit, and more interesting PvP. I base this on my knowledge of game theory, twenty years of experience with MMOs, and several years of experience with this server.
I've ordered these changes by development difficulty. Most of these suggestions reuse existing code, and none of them are as difficult as some of the fantastic work our administration has done.
Get Rid of YT: Very Easy
It's stupid epeen bullshit. Nobody likes it except twink griefers. Nobody cares. Having it encourages plugging and running from fights just to maintain a stat that doesn't matter. And furthermore, YT only tracks killing blows, not everyone who took part in the PvP. For those who care, it's not even classic. YT makes this game more like some bullshit MOBA where everyone wants to run from fights to protect their meaningless stats. YT makes people want to play shadow knights and wizards (who can get killing blows) rather than enchanters or clerics (who usually can't), leading to an imbalance of classes. It's got to go.
How to Stop RMT: Very Easy
This one's easy. Let's take an item which is RMT'd often, AoN for example. Just make it No Drop so it can't be RMT'd. It's that easy.
To those who say that RMTers can still allow the person to loot the item, yes that's true. But in order for that to work, the RMTers need the cooperation of one or more groups. That's really difficult, as anyone can spill the beans and most high level players don't want to get banned by Sirken (pras). And groups are much easier to catch than individuals. This change is easy, would improve the server, and would save the administration a ton of time.
But it's not classic: neither is the EXP bonus, or the fact that the server has been around so long that there are hundreds more of these kinds of items floating around than there ever were live.
LNS Fix: Very Easy
Why the Current System Doesn't Work
It can be abused, and often is. GMs spend far too much of their time on LNS petitions, trying to see what happened. The system relies on users to both know and follow the rules, which is flawed. We can make it better.
The Fix
Typing /LNS makes your corpse appear at your bind point and prevents you from moving, casting, attacking, or being attacked for one hour (LNS Root). Summoning the corpse would be easy, while the LNS Root would need to be a custom debuff (stun + change faction to something nothing can attack would do it).
Preventing Abuse / Spying
Players can no longer bind in dungeons or heavy PvP zones (utilize Timorous Deep code). LNS cannot be used in those zones.
Benefits
No more bullshit LNS petitions.
No more LNS abuse.
Bind camping is impossible, as the person can just /LNS.
GMs are already generous about restoring lost corpses, so this is not a big deal in that regard.
Can't be used to spy since you can't bind or LNS in dungeons or major PvP zones.
Saves the GMs a lot of time.
Saves the GMs a lot of time.
But it's not classic: neither are half of the PNP rules. Besides, something that reduces bullshit petitions, saves the GMs time, and saves us from pointless OOC text is worth it.
Simple Resists Change for Competitive PvP: Easy
Why the Current Resists System Doesn't Work
Casting a spell and having it fully resist is no fun and is swingy. Having high resistance and failing to even partially resist a spell is just as shitty. Some spells work in PvP while most have stupidly high failure rates. Casting a spell yields one of two results:
It goes through and the person who didn't resist it is pissed off at RNG. This can happen even if your resists are maxed, which is frustrating.
It does nothing and the caster is pissed, because he just wasted his time to accomplish nothing. This is the reason why casters are considered inferior to melee for PvP.
This is shitty and makes PvP less versatile and interesting than it should be. This is some swingy Pokémon bullshit. (Half the mechanics in Pokémon are random and most moves are useless. This is not a favorable comparison.)
The Fix
Instead, make all resists partial. Max resist grants up to 90% reduced damage for DD and DOTs, and up to 90% reduced duration for debuffs.
Example: a spell normally does 100 magic damage and stuns for 5 seconds. You have enough magic resist to grant 80% resistance. The spell does 20 damage to you and stuns you for 1 second.
Formula: Damage or duration = (Base damage or duration) - (Base damage or duration) * (Resist / Resist Cap)
Optional: cap it at the base values.
Benefits
Easy to code.
Easy to understand.
Much simpler than the current resist code. No special conditions needed for specific spells.
Casters are a threat regardless of resists.
Resists are beneficial regardless of how much you have.
Both spells and resists work every time, not just sometimes. This is much better for competitive PvP since players can make plans that aren't subject to RNG.
More spells can be used in PvP, making PvP more interesting.
All casters are viable in PvP, not just some, making the game more balanced.
Same formula works on negative resists and spells which work off resist - 100 or similar. Again, it's simple and easy.
But it's not classic: neither is the current resist code, or the stupidly high resistance totals on geared players (reminder: Kunark lasted less than a year on live before Velious).
But then casters can land X spell: is that a problem? Most of the worst shit already lands (such as Whirl till you Hurl). If you have high resists, these spells won't be nearly as effective as normal, as opposed to most spells either working 100% or not at all.
Fix Plugging: Easy
It's stupid and no one likes it. Make the player appear on the other side of the zone LD and killable for the next minute. Just update the server code to complete the zoning process when people go linkdead.
If you can't tell where the player was going, then just do this simple check: if you know the zone, load them over. If you don't know the zone, eject them back into the zone they left from at the zoneline. Easy fix. And players won't get stuck in limbo anymore, which is better for the server.
But I like to plug: nobody else likes it when you do, and it's a cheap-ass PvP-avoidance tactic. If you want to avoid PvP, go play on Blue.
Update Level Ranges to Enable More PvP: Easy
Why the Current Resists System Doesn't Work
Finding people you can PvP with becomes more difficult the higher level you become. Too often a group will be attacked by a player who is in range of some of them but not others. This is extremely annoying. I want to PvP, dammit; the server should let me.
The Fix
You can PvP with anyone of a level you could group with, meaning everyone in the same dungeon can usually PvP. This reuses the grouping formula and would be downright easy.
To avoid major level advantages, normalize hits and resists: make players equally likely to hit each other and resist each other's spells regardless of level. Add a condition to the hit and resist formulas: if attacking another player, do whichever of the following is easiest based on the current formula used:
Current formula uses level: use the target's level for the hit / resist formula. Or, alternatively, just remove level from the formula entirely for PvP attacks and spells.
Current formula uses defense: use defense cap for the target's class at your current level in place of the target's actual defense .
This alone, even without the level range fix, would make PvP between different level players much more balanced. It's not fun to have an advantage / disadvantage just based on level, so remove it.
Factions Server: Moderate (big change but uses existing code, very little is new)
Wipe the current and restart with faction PvP rules. Each faction may attack the others but not its own.
Evils
Troll, Ogre, Dark Elf
No monks, paladins, or bards.
Best shadow knights, warriors, and arguably the best shamans.
Fewest race choices, but overall best racials.
Goods
Wood Elf, High Elf, Half-Elf, Human, Dwarf, Barbarian
Every class available, and pretty decent race choices for all.
Most race choices, but overall worst racial abilities
Unaligned / Neutral
Gnome, Halfling, Erudite, Iksar
Weak warrior types, no bards
Best monks.
Most casters have small size advantage.
For people who already have their epic, add ability to transfer character. Character appears at level 1 on new server, but has a token in inventory that can be traded for epic at the appropriate level. Token trades to final NPC for epic (add as alternative to the other items).
Why Faction PvP?
Faction PvP encourages people to make ties with and develop loyalty to their faction. People will help new players joining their faction to strengthen the faction as a whole. Each faction has advantages and disadvantages, unlike most MMOs, which is both very cool and makes faction choice a meaningful decision.
The difficulty of this change would be purely logistical. Setting the game so that players of different factions may attack one another could utilize the existing faction code. Just give each of the three its own hidden faction, like the animal faction, and set to threatening / amiable accordingly.
This could be a step towards solving the problems with ShowEQ. Something to look into would be hiding other faction members from the client, though doing so may be more difficult than it's worth.
Benefits
Kunark only went on for eight months during live, not years. A reset will bring things back to how they actually used to be (classic).
A server reset will make having gear matter again.
Factions mean you know who you can trust. People don't get invited to a group and then ganked afterwards by the same people.
Encourages people to help out members of their faction.
You don't deal with bullshit grief tells just for killing someone.
Factions make PvP interesting, since each faction has advantages.
You don't lose your epic, unlike most server reset ideas.
Will make RMTers ragequit / an hero.
People have been asking for a reset for years.
Would be a huge step towards fixing the community.
But my pixels: getting pixels is more interesting than having them. I've had plenty of years to get my pixels and I think a fresh start, considering all of the great work the administration has done with bug fixes and such, would make the server more fun than it's ever been.
But I just bought AoN for $500: you are the #1 thing wrong with the server.
Why are Iksar on the same side as the neuts, rather than evil?: Because they don't like anyone and had to pick the side that none of the other races like. In addition, because adding Iksar to the evil faction would make that faction the clear best, leading to everyone playing an evil like we've seen happen before (http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php).