BRIEF description of a hybrid hard code/soft code 3-faction ruleset

[gotrocks]

Originally Posted by Aenor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ok I'm in. By popular demand the factions/teams are:

Evil faction starting cities

1. Grobb
2. Oggok
3. Neriak
4. Paineel

Good faction starting cities

1. Rivervale
2. Qeynos
3. Felwithe
4. Kelethin
5. Halas

Neutral faction starting cities

1. Surefall Glade
2. Kaladim
3. Erudin
4. Ak'Anon
5. Freeport

I greatly approve. Will still be going evil, but will definitely be having gotgnomes as a porter alt on the neutral team =P

[Aenor]

Given the above division of factions, you would have the following class restrictions upon server launch:

Evil faction:

No: Paladin, Druid, Ranger, Monk, Bard

Good faction:

No: Shadow Knight, Necromancer

Neutral faction:

No: Shaman

I know I said before that since SK's can start in Qeynos, let the good team have SK's. But now that I see that the evil faction will be missing 5 classes until Kunark release when they add monks, I think you have to take something away from the other factions.

Therefore it makes sense to put Halas on the good faction since otherwise the neutral faction would have every class available. The evil faction still gets screwed on classes, but this is balanced by the fact that they have Grobb and Neriak, the two closest mele bind points for Sol B and Guk.

So to make this work, all the devs need to do besides the engagement coding is disable SK's and necros for Qeynos.

[Aenor]

Originally Posted by gotrocks [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I greatly approve. Will still be going evil, but will definitely be having gotgnomes as a porter alt on the neutral team =P

Your newt gnome would not be able to port your evil chars. Porting is a beneficial spell and you are hard coded against casting beneficial spells on a char from a different faction. A gnome can only port other neutrals.

[gotrocks]

Originally Posted by Aenor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your newt gnome would not be able to port your evil chars. Porting is a beneficial spell and you are hard coded against casting beneficial spells on a char from a different faction. A gnome can only port other neutrals.

I understood that [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

more importantly, my gnome would not be able to port my evil characters because there will be no 2boxing [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Aenor]

It's also balanced by the fact that non-evil factions don't get troll and ogre tanks. Good team will have barbs but newts? Dwarf warrior, this is your day in the sun.

[gotrocks]

I actually think evil team has potential to get overpowered in this setup. The lack of some serious classes, particularly monk, at launch will be a huge disadvantage.

As you said, this is made up for by their cities, as well as having access to the all-mighty trolls/ogres. Would be interesting to see what would happen if this was implemented.

Imho this setup + no pvp level range would be ideal.

[Vexenu]

It's a good try but I don't think this ruleset would turn out well. The glaring class imbalances between the teams create too many problems. SZ rules worked because the classes restricted to each side were not core classes for raiding or leveling (SK, Nec for Evil; Pally, Ranger, Druid for Good/Neut). Not having access to any of those classes was an annoyance, at best, and didn't hamstring any team in PvE.

When you start restricting Monks, Shaman and Bards though, you really upset the balance of the game. For example, the simple fact that Evils don't get bards, while seemingly minor, would probably be enough to eliminate all hardcore endgame players from the Evil team. Killing raid mobs without Bard resist songs is much more difficult than killing them without Ogre tanks. The team without Shaman for buffs (not clear if it is Good or Neutral since Barbs seem to be shifting around) is also clearly disadvantaged for the same reason.

Basically, I don't see this working unless you add in some grossly un-classic stuff like Dark Elf Bards and Dwarf Shaman. And I think changes on that scale just go too far for most players to be comfortable supporting. For this reason I think a modified SZ ruleset still remains the best option. SZ rules are classic and have known strengths and weaknesses. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, let's just improve what already exists and has been proven to work.

[Aenor]

Except that Sullon had the lowest population of any ruleset. If you want to keep it classic/no customization, clearly Teams99 should be classic race war ruleset.

[Vexenu]

Originally Posted by Aenor [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Except that Sullon had the lowest population of any ruleset. If you want to keep it classic/no customization, clearly Teams99 should be classic race war ruleset.

Hardly anyone wants to keep it 100% classic with no customization (which would be a direct port of RZ, TZ/VZ or SZ rules). Almost everyone I've seen is advocating for some kind of custom ruleset, it's simply a debate about how far those modifications should go. Personally I'm of the opinion that the changes should remain as invisible and behind the scenes as possible, in order to preserve the feel of the classic PvP rules as much as possible while still trying to correct the problems they had.

I like the idea of a race war teams server in theory, but hardcoded teams with such an imbalance of required raiding classes just wouldn't work. So you either need grossly unclassic race/class combos or another ruleset entirely. Personally, I would find DE Bards and Dwarf Shaman more than a little offputting. It's just a little too far to go in the name of developing a new PvP ruleset in my opinion, especially when alternatives are available that don't require such a glaring break with classic. I think most other players would agree with that point as well.

[Aenor]

I agree that would be offputting. So here's a compromise. Each faction gets 4 starting cities that are exclusive to that team, and Halas and Freeport are contested cities where players from multiple factions can start.

Evil faction starting cities

1. Grobb
2. Oggok
3. Neriak
4. Paineel

Good faction starting cities

1. Rivervale
2. Qeynos
3. Felwithe
4. Kelethin

Neutral faction starting cities

1. Surefall Glade
2. Kaladim
3. Erudin
4. Ak'Anon

Contested starting cities:

1. Freeport
2. Halas

Via this compromise, evil faction can open with bards and monks from Freeport. The evil faction would still be restricted from playing paladins, druids and rangers and the good team would be restricted from playing shadow knights and necromancers. As you point out, this is a mere inconvenience. I think four exclusive starting cities and only two of the 14 starting cities allowing multiple factions at server launch is a good compromise.