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View Full Version : How to add a teams element without coding teams


Aenor
08-23-2011, 06:54 AM
Have an NPC in each city that allows you to join guild "Protectors of Starting City X." The thing that teams provided was context so that it was us versus them and not just a purposeless gank fest. Those who want to gank don't have to join the guild.

But those that do join the guild will get to enjoy a sense of civic pride in their home city without the devs having to code teams or deal with the ensuing issues and exploits. Just make it so that if someone kills a member of guild X they can't subsequently join the guild to avoid retribution.

This is especially helpful in drawing new players to the server who don't have a guild waiting for them. Idiots who are going to flame this idea, this means more targets.

Scribbles
08-23-2011, 07:29 AM
hohoho civic pride

Pudge
08-23-2011, 10:32 AM
i suggested this elsewhere, but since this thread is devoted to the topic..

if every level 1 started out with a pre-set guild, based on race/location/whatever, then new players would always at least have other newbs/low levels to group with and make some friends. and be be safe from attack. i always imagined that these guilds would have no leader/officer, so that once you left that was it, you were gone and could never re-join.. unless a GM put you back in

"defenders of X" sounds like a cool idea. i like that you can't join the guild if you've been killing its members. maybe for each person on that team you have killed, there is a 2 day timer you have to wait out before you could join the guild? that way if you've been slaying a team, it depends how hard you actually went at them. should also count if you've been KILLED BY that team. so: kill 3 players on team X, get killed back twice -> need to wait 10 days before being able to join that team.

or maybe these guilds could be regional and not just cities. feel like it would be better to have 3 teams instead of 12 or whatever. the true purpose of these "open guilds" is to gather new players together where they can make friends and be introduced to pvp without getting their nuts cut off. in order to help them make more friends and have a more powerful team/guild to fight the MANY ppl who will just make/join a private guild, i think the pre-made guilds should be pretty large

deakolt
08-23-2011, 02:16 PM
sounds like these ideas require coding

Aenor
08-23-2011, 03:27 PM
sounds like these ideas require coding

I wouldn't make it too complicated with lockout timers and such. Make it a one time thing where if you ever kill a member or leave the guild, you can never rejoin. Just as +/- 8 is a compromise between FFA and Rallos rules, this is a compromise between teams and no teams. If the devs see promise in this idea but agree with Pudge that it should be fewer than 12 guilds, make it 4, based on the original race teams:

Wee Defenders

Elven Guards

Forces of Darkness

Human Shield

vinx
08-23-2011, 09:01 PM
sounds like these ideas require coding
^This

I wouldn't make it too complicated with lockout timers and such. Make it a one time thing where if you ever kill a member or leave the guild, you can never rejoin. Just as +/- 8 is a compromise between FFA and Rallos rules, this is a compromise between teams and no teams. If the devs see promise in this idea but agree with Pudge that it should be fewer than 12 guilds, make it 4, based on the original race teams:

Wee Defenders

Elven Guards

Forces of Darkness

Human Shield
Also sounds like codeing, but i like the idea (reminds me of VZ and i miss my yellow elven name!!)

why not just make these regional guilds FFA with the server +/- 8 or whatever like the rest of the server?
if your getting into it with a guild member one of you will just leave lol
(since its NPC invite, theres nobody to boot players from guild)

I guess you could add in codeing, maybe something like - Kill fellow guildmate
once: inguild warning
twice: inguild warning
third time = booted/unguildable by same regional guild
If you dont understand AE by now, you wont be in guild very long lol

this seems sorta like minimal codeing over some suggestions but lets not bring more work to the table

Also, this way i bet you could possibly faction to join another regional guild, if the invite NPC is on the city faction
if a starter guild like this were ever to reach raid feasiblity, that would be cool for missing classes
(some regions NEED em)

I srsly doubt an idea like this would go anywhere for a classic EQ server..
but you never know till you suggest! half the pvp servers of EQ classic were teams
and it added more of a spin to the server then just having PVE/PVP
If this idea tickles some fancy id really like to request the elven regional guild to have yellow names plz
Id join that for awhile just to reminisce

Secrets
08-23-2011, 09:17 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdf5n-zI14

vinx
08-23-2011, 09:27 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvdf5n-zI14

lol i <3 that

Deattas
08-23-2011, 10:02 PM
K&B

Humerox
08-23-2011, 11:57 PM
I like this; it has serious possibilities imo. I never played K&B, as it was over-customized imo...but this idea wasn't too bad.

+1

Scribbles
08-24-2011, 02:52 AM
hohoho civic pride

Aenor
08-24-2011, 04:08 AM
Idiots who are going to flame...

Secrets
08-24-2011, 04:40 AM
Ok, if you want constructive feedback from someone who worked on the emu and p1999 code instead of me laughing off the idea, here's the issue:

It would be more work to code this idea than to code in any other ideas, sans the one Rogean presented. Here's why:

1) NPC to change team needs to be scripted. It's not like we can just do if(NPCHailed) { Gievteam } and expect results.

2) The attack rules are strikingly similar to EQEmulator's implementation. This means that if you want to code in a PVP rule, you'll need to implement basic math and already existing functions to enable certain things. Now, that's just for level range PvP.

What you are doing is funneling everyone into the same guild (guilds are terribly handled in eqemu, and were on p1999 for the longest time, which makes it require an incredible amount of cpu to not be slow with that many people in the same guild), making sure no one can form communities within those guilds (If we wanted to support that, we'd have to code "sub-guilds", and that would add to the development time), and lastly requiring a lot of reading for people to do before they get onto the server, or else they'll get roflstomped by a city guild or a player guild.

Believe it or not, having everyone figure things out can turn people off from the game. That wasn't the case in classic, but at least classic had an instruction manual and a prima guide.

3) Everyone goes to the same guild. Guild becomes unbalanced and dominates the server as an unorganized zerg. This happened in, I don't know, DAOC, WAR, EQ2, etc, you name the game's PVP system it happened. Which one will it be? I don't know what one it will be, but people will flock to one and stay in it. People do not like to be forced into being outnumbered, and not only that, but if everyone is in the same guild you might as well call it a blue server.

4) History has told us that this is done before and it does not work. Look at K&B, I thought that server was a great idea, and that it could go far. It was ultimately ended by what we talked about in #3.

5) More targets? No, you'll limit your choices by not having a FFA/Team-FFA system. That guy that is training you? Yeah, forget about PKing him, he's gonna grief you to oblivion. Say hello to GM-enforced rules, and goodbye to meaningful PVP.

6) Project 1999 already has a lot of the needed code in place to make this work, although it is geared for PVE, it can be made for PVP as well. Don't worry about p1999 not being able to code *anything*, they are more than capable of doing it, and time is not an issue at all.

Conclusion: It's a bad idea.

Aenor
08-24-2011, 07:52 AM
This is much preferred. If my ideas suck, tell me WHY they suck. I'm sure Rogean and co, if they were so motivated, could find a streamlined solution to make this happen. But if they've settled on dynamic FFA, I'm perfectly happy with that. Just thought I would try to throw a bone to the teams fanatics out there.

However, I'm not one of the Sullon kiddies who's like "SZ was the greatest ruleset ever, never mind the fact that only a tiny fraction of the PvP player base ever bothered with it and it flamed out faster than any other server... if you don't make Red99 with hardcoded teams it will fail within a month..."

Humerox
08-24-2011, 10:00 AM
Project 1999 already has a lot of the needed code in place to make this work, although it is geared for PVE, it can be made for PVP as well. Don't worry about p1999 not being able to code *anything*, they are more than capable of doing it, and time is not an issue at all.

Conclusion: It's a bad idea.

It's only my opinion, but people flocked to a particular team because it had a distinct advantage from the start.

The biggest drawback to any FFA is psychological. There's no real "purpose" beyond normal EQ gameplay to bring people together. So there's no hook...no reason for blues to play, because they're not interested in PvP as a singular motive.

I don't know what a good solution would be. If coding and time isn't an issue, then the rest is creative process.

EQ had 4 PvP servers, 3 of which were team based: Sullon Zek, Tallon Zek, and Vallon Zek. Combined the populations of the team based servers far, far exceeded the 4th server (Rallos Zek). There was a reason for that...FFA is essentially pointless PvP, and that doesn't draw the blues.

Yukahwa
08-24-2011, 11:29 AM
I think a teams element is a bad deal. The game wasn't designed for a team system and so the class / race and good/evil structure just doesn't work that nicely.

I think the natural system of "mean griefers" versus "I want to level up right now" creates a more interesting dynamic and does not create communities that are simply too small to survive. Especially on a server that will likely have a small population compared to what was seen on live.

PVP is something an individual chooses. Elves kill elves sometimes.

lethdar
08-24-2011, 12:14 PM
Theres no need for teams. I'm sure there will be random newbie guilds inviting whoever can have just for the numbers on the first day. Aside from that, many of the people from p99 or vztz will already know people who will be playing and can join up with them.

Humerox
08-24-2011, 01:22 PM
You guys are missing my point, lol. It'll ultimately just end up being the same 60-100 it always is, especially with the P99 experience rate.

Red99 is in the unique position of drawing a lot more, but compromise and creativity is required.

I'll play no matter what happens...I played the other failboxes too. I just want sh**loads of targets, and a fun experience. Not the same old humdrum BS. Can't do that without drawing in the carebears.