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anyone have any ideas about limiting twinking?

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and

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Twinking is the act of giving a new character lots of high level gear and/or useing a high level character to quickly level a new character.

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I'm just going to assume that a game which sees twinking as a problem is almost completely focused on leveling (hack'n'slash) and attaining items (loot).

GIVING A NEW CHARACTER HIGH LEVEL GEAR
I've seen quite a few suggestions to solve this (not just in this thread), but there really is only one good one:
item deterioration
It won't solve the problem of players giving characters powerful gear, but there will be a lower quantity of available gear, so the overall amount of twinking will be much lower. Also, if an item will only be around for so long, would you give it to your new character, or keep it for your existing character?

You didn't want level restrictions on weapons ("you have to be level X before you can use this weapon"), with which I somewhat agree, but that idea works especially well when combined with item deterioration.
A skilled fighter will know exactly what to do with a weapon. He'll know how to wield it, how to clean it, how to keep it in good shape. An unskilled fighter will abuse the weapon, causing it to deteriorate much quicker.

USING HIGH LEVEL CHARACTER TO QUICKLY LEVEL A NEW CHARACTER
I honestly still don't see what the problem with this is. If your game is pretty much hack'n'slash, kill baddies for ep and level up, isn't this 'level-twinking' something that comes with the territory?

As a developer, you might fear that players will not play the game as long, but that's really the only problem I can see.

DEBASER wrote:

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One of the things that encourages griefers, or game-crappers as I prfer to call them, is the ease of building a character. If there isn't an investment in the character why should they feel they have anything to lose by ruining someone elses experience. By forcing a player to really work at advancing his character you will get rid of alot of the idiot behaviors.

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This works both ways though. If there is an investment in the character, griefers will have more to ruin. If both I and a griefer have to work for 10 hours to build our characters, will he simply not bother, because it takes him too long? Or will he take the 10 hours and then start to ruin my gaming experience? How long should the investment be to deter griefers?

Are griefers griefers because they don't have anything to lose, or because others do have something to lose?

[edited by - Silvermyst on December 3, 2002 5:35:58 PM]

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Original post by Silvermyst

Are griefers griefers because they don''t have anything to lose, or because others do have something to lose?

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If they are going to lose more than the person they are effecting then they will not bother (or if they do they will probably not be smart enough to do much harm in the first place). If someone is game crapping and my character falls victim to it, I lose some time and maybe an item or two. The idea is to make it so that he (the greifer) loses considerably more as a result of his action. Now if his character took no time to make in the grand scheme of things, he would not be phased by banning, weakening, or any other punishment, because he can go make another character and start messing with people again.

I''m not an MMORGer so I don''t know if this is practical, but regarding the practise of giving high power items to new characters, how about this: have the server monitor all player to player transactions. Whenever there is a large imbalance in the values of the items traded, simply broadcast a message to all other players, telling them what''s going on and who''s involved. Let the other players decide if something should be done about it.

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Original post by Plasmadog
I'm not an MMORGer so I don't know if this is practical, but regarding the practise of giving high power items to new characters, how about this: have the server monitor all player to player transactions. Whenever there is a large imbalance in the values of the items traded, simply broadcast a message to all other players, telling them what's going on and who's involved. Let the other players decide if something should be done about it.

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That assumes they can do something about it. Also, how do you decide what a large imbalance is and if it's an actual case of twinking and not just someone being nice?


[edited by - Machaira on December 3, 2002 9:45:45 PM]

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Original post by Machaira
That assumes they can do something about it.

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That was implied. When I said "let the other players...", I meant give them the means to deal with the twinkers. That shouldn''t be a problem given that we are talking about a game genre where killing other players for profit is the norm.

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Also, how do you decide what a large imbalance is...

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That''s just one of those many things that the designers have to figure out and tweak until it suits everyone. But, the threshold doesn''t have to be set in stone since it does not directly affect gameplay. The tweaking could continue untill well after release. It could even be a dynamic threshold, reporting only the top 5% or so of imbalanced transactions. Or perhaps it could be an individual preference.

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...and if it''s an actual case of twinking and not just someone being nice?

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You (as the designer) don''t need to determine this. Again, let the players determine what is philanthropy and what is cheating, and let them decide how to deal with it.

As I said though, I don''t play these games. Maybe this all completely untenable.

You say you don''t want to use a level limit, but how about adjusting item effectiveness by level?

A level 10 sword can be used by anyone, but the damage/hit % is affected by the user. e.g. A level 10 character using a level 10 sword would do 100% of the damage. However a level 3 character using the same sword would only do 3/10 or 30% the damage. Of course the scaling doesn''t have to be linear.

You don''t even have to tell the player what level an item is, simply give them a message "This weapon is difficult to use, maybe you need more practice" when they equip it.

This still allows them to use any item they want, but not as effectivly as if they were the appropriate level. It would also have the added benefit of a player becomming more effecient with their equipment as they increase in skill.

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Original post by Plasmadog
That's just one of those many things that the designers have to figure out and tweak until it suits everyone.

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Who was it that said "You can please some of the people some of the time...but you can't please all of the people all of the time." There will always be someone out there that'll say that what you think is fair sucks.

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Original post by Plasmadog
You (as the designer) don't need to determine this. Again, let the players determine what is philanthropy and what is cheating, and let them decide how to deal with it.

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If you leave it in the players' hands what you'll end up with is 1000 different opinions as to whether someone is twinking and what to do to them. You'll also have the people who just want to ruin your game always trying to accuse people and cause them problems.

I just don't think you can let the players make game decisions of this magnitude. If you want to allow twinking go ahead and just ignore those people that don't like it or implement a way that prohibits twinking. I think any one of the ways that I posted above will work, although there will be some people that don't like it no matter what you do.


[edited by - Machaira on December 4, 2002 8:30:33 AM]

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Original post by Machaira

Who was it that said "You can please some of the people some of the time…but you can''t please all of the people all of the time." There will always be someone out there that''ll say that what you think is fair sucks.

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I think you mean, "You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can''t pick your friend''s nose."

Back to seriousness….

Just make the items require a certain skill level to use at peak efficiency. That way, everyone can use every item (except in the case where it is a class specific or class excluded item). Only the degree of success is changed. That would encourage players to build up their characters. By the time they build up enough to be able to effectivly use the item, they are at the strength they would be at to earn the item.

£§

although it might not be the intend of the anti-twinkers, but every and all measures that are designed to prevent twinking will also effectively decimate player based economy.

[edited by - tanikaze on December 4, 2002 6:04:15 PM]

You could also opt to make the gear that is really useful tie to the character that kills the monster or does the quest. This way, one character couldn''t give another character that gear. He could take him on the hunt for the monster or the quest, but then you could have a limitation saying that the player wanting the item should be in the party and actually HELP with the monster or quest.. not just stand in the background and reap the benefits