PvP exp loss

[Tr0llb0rn]

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

Chain griefing happens even more with exp loss when people are at their bind points and get bind camped. Also, your situation of a Bard that somehow got a locket of escape and bound himself at the pots (something which maybe a handful of bards on the whole server will have the privilege of experiencing) is not only hilariously unlikely, but contradictory - if he's running back to your zone "over and over again", then that means you're killing him, because how else would he be at his bind point? This wasn't a problem on Live, it won't be a problem here, and if it is, deal with it using pvp.

What about the bard chain griefing the quading wiz/druids in TD itself? What recourse do the quaders have? Nothing, except get griefed all day and have the bard laugh even when they waste mana to kill him.

Your solution to this was always that you respawn without mana in pvp death, well this does not effect the bard.

Every class needs to have skin in the pvp game. The only universal skin that covers all bases is.... the xp bar.

So the current system must remain.

[heartbrand]

Agree 100% with lazortag. Doesn't matter, this will get removed, either now or later when the masses complain on the boards when they lose 3% in level 54 and need to spend another 45 minutes grinding it back, only to get PKed again, and again. The grief caused by exp loss at the higher levels is infinitely higher than the grief that can be created by some hypothetical naked bard.

[Dullah]

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

Sure you can. You set it to a number (say, 50). Then if they go to make <NihilumTwo>, you discipline as you would any other GM-enforced rule.

People asked Nihilum to trim the fat off their zerg for months. They usually responded with "but what if Holocaust comes back and tries to out-recruit us again?".The solution isn't asking one specific guild, and this isn't limited to Nihilum.

The concept of winning-via-quantity is just bad for any server's long-term sustainability. I don't want Kunark to become another race of who can recruit the most level 60 guys and win by proxy of size.

We raided with less than 20 for the last 4 months. Even when the pop was 100+, we were still raiding with our numbers in the 20s.

You'd be better off putting a restriction on how hardcore people in Nihilum can be and how often they must change their poopsocks. The core of Nihilum play more seriously than anyone in the rival guilds, and thats what it all boils down to. Most of them leveled to 50 in a matter of weeks, and have multiple 50s alts. They play harder, longer and more frequently. They play to win. Creating a mechanic to prevent like-minded players from joining each other in an MMO is a farce.

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Tr0llb0rn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What about the bard chain griefing the quading wiz/druids in TD itself? What recourse do the quaders have? Nothing, except get griefed all day and have the bard laugh even when they waste mana to kill him.

Your solution to this was always that you respawn without mana in pvp death, well this does not effect the bard.

Every class needs to have skin in the pvp game. The only universal skin that covers all bases is.... the xp bar.

So the current system must remain.

Typically we don't mold policy around extremely unlikely situations that will affect only a small number of players on the server. You would need a locket in the first few days of kunark opening to be able to bind a Bard in TD (either that or a dark elf SK with a ring of the dead). How is exp loss going to be helpful for the wizard in this situation, unless he kills the Bard 10 times or something? How would a single wizard even have the mana pool to do that? Instead of inventing totally unrealistic scenarios where pvp exp loss is a good thing, why not focus on the overwhelming majority of scenarios where it's bad? The benefits are minor, the harms are huge, it needs to go.

edit: as for the point about nihilum being a zerg and how it apparently ruins the server, this is hogwash. Many people joined nilly because they saw it as an alternative to the racist loudmouths and griefers in holo and FF. If you don't want one guild to dominate, present an alternative guild for the players to join that isn't centered around griefing people and alienating your potential applicant pool.

[SearyxTZ]

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

We raided with less than 20 for the last 4 months. Even when the pop was 100+, we were still raiding with our numbers in the 20s.

You'd be better off putting a restriction on how hardcore people in Nihilum can be and how often they must change their poopsocks. The core of Nihilum play more seriously than anyone in the rival guilds, and thats what it all boils down to. Most of them leveled to 50 in a matter of weeks, and have multiple 50s alts. They play harder, longer and more frequently. They play to win. Creating a mechanic to prevent like-minded players from joining each other in an MMO is a farce.

Nihilum was regularly 2-3x the size of any competing guilds (usually "too many players to list") when I was checking them with /who, and there is a screenshot of 50 Nihilum being online at once. They were bigger than almost every guild I can remember on the classic Zek servers, despite that we are all playing on a server that is 10% of the size.

Capping or regulating size is not a "farce". It is a potential solution to a big problem.

In most competitive team-based environments, it is a requirement to have even numbers on opposing sides. Do you see any sports being played with uneven numbers on two sides? No. How about competitive RTS games? Nope. FPS games? No.

EQ is not so structured and the variable guild sizes are part of what makes it interesting, but I am telling you guys right now that if history repeats itself and we get any guild that is 3 times bigger than the others, or the two guilds at the top get into another recruitment war, this will sink just like it did before. This box needs lots of guilds competing. Small to medium sized guilds. Not one gigantic guild that is telling everyone else "too bad so sad make your own zerg and try to out-recruit us".

[mindsculptor]

there are hard to resolve problems with roster limits. if the guild really wants to use numbers then they just use 2 tags, even if you are able to use gms to deter this sort of behavior guild recruiting and attendance requirements start to have to become really onerous if you want your guild to compete.

I dont really want to see raiding turn into how it is on blue where guilds raid trakanon with over 50 people. raiding with a massive army takes anything interesting out of the raid itself. I just don't know an elegant solution to this issue.

I think a possible solution is that if 2 guilds get pretty close in raid viability/numbers they could mutually agree to a recruiting hault. Nihilum's roster is viable on their website already and a publicly posted roster is a good way for guilds to keep each other honest in such an agreement. Even without agree to an outright suspension of recruiting, guilds could agree to monthly quota or something along those lines. Obviously this solution has its problems, the main one being both guilds have to be in a position that they would agree to it. Enforcement, alts, etc are also problems.

I certainly agree with the spirit of trying to avoid outright win via numbers behavior, but i will say that right now its hard to say Nihilum is a zerg guild. They do much of the content they currently raid with bare minimum numbers to actually succeed. I was not around in the past to speak to their former presence nor can I speak to what they will do in the future, but certainly i can understand the fear of a numbers race because there is a strong incentive to do so when the competition gets close.

[bamzal]

this server caters to zergs and there is no skill required in pvp. doomed from the start. Null - fix resists. What makes you think that you can add a custom mechanic into the server when everyone else on the project is trying to make this classic.

[SamwiseBanned]

I don't blame Nihilum as much as I blame the players. It has been the same story for a long time, server finally gets a new poop socker, they rush to 50, join Nihilum. I am not sure if its just my gamer mentality of playing for a challenge but I can't understand the reasoning behind joining the biggest/most powerful guild on a pvp server. Newer players need to think about whats more important, best in slot or a healthy competitive server.

[Dullah]

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

edit: as for the point about nihilum being a zerg and how it apparently ruins the server, this is hogwash. Many people joined nilly because they saw it as an alternative to the racist loudmouths and griefers in holo and FF. If you don't want one guild to dominate, present an alternative guild for the players to join that isn't centered around griefing people and alienating your potential applicant pool.

^see this

Said it dozens of times, but its good for someone else to say it so they can't write it off as easily.

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

Nihilum was regularly 2-3x the size of any competing guilds (usually "too many players to list") when I was checking them with /who, and there is a screenshot of 50 Nihilum being online at once. They were bigger than almost every guild I can remember on the classic Zek servers, despite that we are all playing on a server that is 10% of the size.

Capping or regulating size is not a "farce". It is a potential solution to a big problem.

In most competitive team-based environments, it is a requirement to have even numbers on opposing sides. Do you see any sports being played with uneven numbers on two sides? No. How about competitive RTS games? Nope. FPS games? No.

Three things:

1) You don't take 5 guys to a 10v10 sporting event. EQ requires certain numbers to do certain things. When people first start hitting 50, it requires 30-40 to do dragons. Nihilum had only what they needed to be successful in the game. After early sol b battles (where Holo offered the server loot to help fight Nihilum), we seldom had as many as 30 on. In fear, it was 20+ holo versus 20+ Nihilum. Except when we batphone for CT we almost never saw more than 30 online. Those are exceptions. Inductive reasoning does not win debates.

2) Server population. There needs to be a healthy enough population to have 3 or 4 Nihilum guilds that are capable of doing content. The fact that there hasn't been, does make it hard for those wanting to compete. If others guilds "don't care about pve" (bs), thats their choice. You won't stop a raid guild with a gank squad. Trying to have new rules written that prevent players from playing EQ just so you can have a daily BotB tournament is selfish. This is not counterstrike with swords.

3) You accomplish 1 & 2 by not alienating the population with senseless griefing (see quote at top).

[heartbrand]

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

I don't blame Nihilum as much as I blame the players. It has been the same story for a long time, server finally gets a new poop socker, they rush to 50, join Nihilum. I am not sure if its just my gamer mentality of playing for a challenge but I can't understand the reasoning behind joining the biggest/most powerful guild on a pvp server. Newer players need to think about whats more important, best in slot or a healthy competitive server.

The issue is more than the number of members they have it's that they have almost every single level 50 on the server. Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to make a list longer than six people who are active level 50s and not in nihilum or a nihilum alt.

As far as griefing, have we really forgotten nihilum was a guild founded by someone who shamelessly exploited game mechanics to grief in PVP? In nihilum vent I heard plenty of racist language. Their own recruiting leader took the game so seriously he spammed my name and address in global ooc. Natural would chain train people in guk, fallen would go to newbie zones and ks mobs so people couldn't level up, tror ported newbies to tox. Have you read ooc lately? It's just a bunch of nihilum players spamming repeatedly. I certainly wouldn't want to play here if I was a newb reading ooc.

People join nihilum because they are farming raid content and they want more pixels. It's not rocket science. When I asked plenty of people it's always the same response: "I just want to get geared" or "I just want to get my epic" it's not "nihilum is a guild of gentlemen built on solid moral values" though I'm sure destin, the same guy who didnt play on this server in the opening months but tries to tell us "facts" from then, will tell us every member joined nihilum because it's a beacon of peace and love.

Edit: I'm sure there's a couple of holier-than-thou's in nihilum who feel they are on higher moral ground being there, but this is the minority.