Before answering the questions, I am going to show the campaign maps:
- Rank 2 and Rank 1 flags are filtered for the second campaign map
- In reality, there is the fog of war. For example, if you are the blue faction, some of the Flags should be marked with '?' instead of an actual number, and most of the flags deep within the enemy territory will not be shown, or only be shown by grey flags, indicating the information is from a past, outdated scout report.
- If you are a commander and you look at the map, the questions you should ask are, "Is there something urgent going on near me? Are there enough guys around me to attack?" You will communicate with the other commanders to see what they are trying to do. Strategies are spontaneous created. So a mission board may not be necessary.
- If you are a Flagless warrior and you look at the battle map, you will be asking similar questions, "What are there to do? which Flag should I join temporarily?" Note that if you follow the large flags, you will almost always guarantee to have battles, since actions concentrate around the large flags.
- Therefore, even though not all of the players under a rank 5 Flag are online at the same time, the logistic value of the Flag allows the affiliated to immediately reinforce the frontline when they log on.
Is it possible, with this map, to draw a FRONTLINE that will NOT look like my telephone's cable? I mean, frontLINE is pretty self explanatory, it is a LINE. not circles. at worst, it will be curves.
Your distribution of the Flags left me to think it was random. But they should be progressing from a point towards another point, maybe in cruves, maybe in straight lines, but they should have an overall GOAL. As a general, you don't position your troops by playing darts on the maps. You plan. And this should be done because of the disposition of the map. Which leads me back to a previous question:
How do you position the mission objectives in order for it to be balanced? Do you give everyone the same possibilities? Do you make the bonus affiliated with said structures only available if your faction possesses BOTH identical structure? How can you provide a frontal assault situation without taking away the opportunity to explore the world? And how can you provide a need to explore around you without ending in a situation where the soldiers are just running around, chasing each others without knowing where the hell is the enemy?
I like the idea of the PVP system here alot. I think its pretty advanced and allows a fair fight to happen most of the time.
The only thing i dont like, overall, is that it seems the entirety of the game is based on going to war. You mentioned theres other stuff, but it sounds like all that other stuff is just stuff to prepare you for war.
While I like intelligent PVP, I dont like playing games entirely for PVP.
I think it would Be a cool option to join the Military once you get to a certain level. When youre in the military, you can freely go between Soldier-Mode, and Civilian-Mode. In Civilian Mode, whatever armor you have equipped has its own style and whatnot, but in Soldier Mode, all your armor is tinted a certain color, and you have some sort of insignia on you. When in Soldier mode, you can enter battle. Maybe on the battlefield, there could be special NPC vendors that sell you different stuff based on your rank in the military.
I like MMORPGs for more than just pvp, so i woudlnt want to play one where the ultimate goal is to engage in pvp. Planetside, for example, was boring as hell.
Frontline Frontline with the Flags off - I don't think the frontline is telling much, and it can be deceiving, because an enemy Flag might have already sneaked behind it, and the frontline will give a false sense of security
Shaping the BattleField
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Your distribution of the Flags left me to think it was random. But they should be progressing from a point towards another point, maybe in cruves, maybe in straight lines, but they should have an overall GOAL.
The initial distribution of the flag is more or less random. And it should be random for the following reasons:
1) Allow conflicts and strategies to begin as the game begins 2) Allow the players to have different perspectives on how the war should progress 3) Promote strategic cooperation (with risks and tradeoffs) 4) Allow the players to frontify the cities, and select a place for advanced structures.
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As a general, you don't position your troops by playing darts on the maps. You plan. And this should be done because of the disposition of the map.
There are no generals in the beginning. The players are free to debate how they should attack and defend. It is more democratic than actual modern warfare. You can think of the Flags as warlords, and each of them might have a different perspective and strategy. So there may be conflicts among Flags in the same faction. And they are supposed to resolve those conflicts, or the enemy might take advantage of them.
Although the distribution of the Initial Map was random, the Midgame map was not random. There will be sections where the Flags are cut off and isolated. And those are reasonable and interesting situations.
Questions
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How do you position the mission objectives in order for it to be balanced? Do you give everyone the same possibilities?
What do you mean by 'position mission objectives'? As in declaring a target for the flags to attack? What exactly are you trying to 'balance'?
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Do you make the bonus affiliated with said structures only available if your faction possesses BOTH identical structure?
what do you mean?
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How can you provide a frontal assault situation without taking away the opportunity to explore the world?
I don't think it would make much sense to be able to 'explore' enemy territory if the character is not stealth or scout type. Players might group in small groups near the frontlines, and create skirmishes. But in order to tell where the real Flags are you need spies, or a situation where a Flag runs into an enemy Flag.
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And how can you provide a need to explore around you without ending in a situation where the soldiers are just running around, chasing each others without knowing where the hell is the enemy?
Depends on what you mean by 'explore'. There are watch towers, that if an enemy Flag shows up within radius, it will automatically show up on the battle map. The locations of the cities are known. For commanders, they mostly think in terms of how to take out those cities. So most of the time they do know exactly where the hell the enemies are, but you don't know how many there are.
Original post by Garmichael I like the idea of the PVP system here alot. I think its pretty advanced and allows a fair fight to happen most of the time.
The only thing i dont like, overall, is that it seems the entirety of the game is based on going to war. You mentioned theres other stuff, but it sounds like all that other stuff is just stuff to prepare you for war.
While I like intelligent PVP, I dont like playing games entirely for PVP.
You have touched many topics:
- If there is PvE warfare, would you play it? - If the PvE warfare is integrated with the PvP warfare, would you play it? - If you choose to have PvP but not be involved in the war, you can still steal civilian targets that have no impact on the war; you can freely attack other PvPers with no allegiance. - It seems that you want to do something in a warring world that has nothing to do with warfare. To a degree you can still do this, for example, if you choose to have no allegiance, and no PvP, you can still explore, group with friends, level up and get items. While doing these, you will still see towns and cities getting destroyed and getting built. Things are changing around you and you are not part of it, while you could have been. If you choose to have an allegiance, but no PvP, then you can safely explore in the peaceful territories. But at the same time you know that the peace you have come from those fought for it. (Note that if you choose PvP you can still stay behind ally territory and have fun on your own. The game intrinsically needs this kind of players or the 'capitals' will just be ghost towns.
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I think it would Be a cool option to join the Military once you get to a certain level. When youre in the military, you can freely go between Soldier-Mode, and Civilian-Mode. In Civilian Mode, whatever armor you have equipped has its own style and whatnot, but in Soldier Mode, all your armor is tinted a certain color, and you have some sort of insignia on you. When in Soldier mode, you can enter battle. Maybe on the battlefield, there could be special NPC vendors that sell you different stuff based on your rank in the military.
I think these are a cool idea.
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I like MMORPGs for more than just pvp, so i woudlnt want to play one where the ultimate goal is to engage in pvp. Planetside, for example, was boring as hell.
There are PvE battles. The current design does not support characters to be involved in the war but choose Not to PvP. Would you be interested if there is integrated gameplay for those who want to be involved in the war but doesn't want to PvP?
The game should maintain a certain civilian population. So you can imagine this as the same as a 'normal' server of WoW, except the horde can actually come and destroy IronForge. This design has much more roleplay elements than normal strategy or PvP games. I am imagining that there are quite a lot of player-player interactions that do not involve fighting, and a lot of room for emergent stories.
And all of it comes from the fact that you are fighting under a flag, the that flag has a history as the game progreses. In most PvP games, that history is missing.
For example: At the north east corner, the Sertin Flag had been isolated for a long time, the Red flags had been trying to take out those double flags but failed every time. Their arrows just doesn't seem to run out.
Meanwhile, near the center east, Um'dyna (Rank5) had been trying to take out the city across the bridge, but it was defend by the Red Flags Hinchao (Rank4), Honard (Rank4), and Eldrayril (Rank5).
So the higher Blue commander made a plan: the Sertin Flag passed around a rumor that they were able to survive for so long because they got hold of an artifact that greatly reduced the cost of making arrows. (In reality, they are always short of supplies, but Dynalenal's Flag (Rank4) had been sneaking across to bring supplies.)
Eldrayril (Rank5) bought the rumor and decided to go north to take out Sertin. While another Red Rank4 Flag moved down to take the place. Just as Eldrayril got far enough, Um'dyna crossed the bridge and sieged the city (2x Rank4). At the same time Neler (Blue Rank4) Intercepted the reinforcement Rank4 flag.
Dynalenal (Blue Rank4) was caught by two rank3 flags while bring supply back to Sertin through the marsh after forming an alliance with the local creeps. (It is pretty impossible to bring supplies through the marsh, but the creeps were helping.) Dynalenal Flag is a stealth Flag, his rank comes from smuggling, not fighting.
Hey Estok!! this kind of evolving storytelling and strategizing is incredibly interesting, but how are we going to make the players buy so much involvement? Most are merely interested in killing stuff in their own campment, camping out the same spot for as long as they are allowed to sit in their chair by their mommy (or loved one, depending...). Some others are more interested in being allowed to become über, which simply does NOT fit in the warfare MMORPG we are planning, because anyone should be able to take ANYONE down. A general should not have the possibility to shrug off the blows of privates. He is human like them (or Orcish, or trollish, or whatever have you) and is therefore subject to the same laws of "I hit, they die, they hit, I die" I am not even sure if there should be an increase of the HP along time. I think it would just be a good thing to give more skills, and to differentiate them. Giving more HP merely reduces the PvP and RvR to a previous tedious grind, which will enable über superiority and leave the experience meaningless, since the überest characters will just have to band to take down an infinitely numericaly superior group of lowbies. And this is not warfare. This is Conan singlehandedly assaulting the Tower of Thulsa Doom. Not fair, nor exactly exciting, in PvP system. As for the rest, most of them are merely interested in chain-slaying lowbies. These should be sent on suicide commandos...
But to resume what had already been said, and not understood, To the Static Artifact Structures.
What I wanted to tell is that the Static Artifacts have to be placed very thoughtfully, because it is likely that there will be many fights over them. I had imagined that in the beginning, the two warring factions would face each others across the map, and that they would advance as fast as possible to meet in the middle of the map, so as to push the opponents back towards the point they came from, on the big map as in the instanced maps, towards their original flags. But it seems, from what I've read that you were in fact planning a more random approach for the placement of the groups, in the beginning. This can be made too, but it supposes that you give a backstory that will explain that the two warring factions are in fact supporters of two opposite princes, taking on each other for the throne, of whatever... This COULD explain why there is NO frontline and everybody can take on anybody in the back. Interesting. It would mean a more Guerilla-like approach to that war. And it would only become proper war, with supply lines and such when two or more groups would finally meet and band. I buy the concept!!
But to tell you what I meant with the structures, I had in mind that there would only be one artefact-like structure in the map. Therefore, the position of said artefact-structure was determinant as to which side it would favor, since only ONE side could control it at one time. And if it was set too deeply into enemy territory, then it was likely that the structure would remain on the same side until game reset, which I thought was pretty stupid.
The sonde proposition I had made was to put TWO identical artefact-like structures on the map, and to enable the bonus only when both were captured by the same side, thus giving reasons for assaults on the other side, and carefully planning what came next. But as you said, there is no reason for a general to exist in the beginning, and therefore NO reason for a precise objective to be established. I suppose that in the beginning, it would mainly amount to survive in a hostile territory, until you find some more people on your side.
But something is suddendly coming to my mind: How can you organize supplylines and defensive missions if there is no clear and definite sides? Why would a given city (given there ARE cities in this form of MMORPG) be on one side or the other, if everyone and his second-cousin can have diverging opinions about who the legitimate prince is? This means that Towns have to be defended from exterior attacks AND from interior riots?? In this case, it is likely that anything needed to supply exterior troops will have to be enforced on local population, hence MORE riots. The handling of pending riots is supposedly quite good for lowbies to get their hands on the game, and learn the ropes, sort of low-level of threat missions. But it will probably get tiring in the long run to have to fight outside AND inside the walls. And it is also likely that a given city will not provide supplies for BOTH armies, unless the citizens are hard-boot-lickers trying to get the best possible futures, no matter who wins. So this means that there should be MANY cities, and MANY structure-like artefacts, in order for everyone to have fun running from one point to another, fighting over structures that will be lost in hours. But on the meantime, they can have fun fending off the enemies. Ok. Let's try this.
So? Should there be non-structure-like artefacts? Should there be PORTABLE artefacts, which would grant bonuses to the bearer's group, and would remain on the spot when the bearer logged off? You mentionned a potential artefact that reduced the cost of arrows. let's imagine a magical fletching kit, which produced twice as many arrows as a good crafter with a good crafting kit, if fed with rough wood, rough ore and feathers. This kind of thing should be pretty big, about the size of a chest, right? maybe a small one. What if this kind of artefact could be found as random loot in instanced caves, and dungeons? Do you think it could give people not interested in PvP or RvR a reason to go hunting and sell them to any side? or maybe donate them? Could this be done while "not on duty"?
And Garmichael mentionned the possibility to change at will between Soldier mode and Civilian mode. I think this should NOT be the case, for this would so obviously be abused to lure the enemy on approaching forces. But maybe, if the change had to occur under a flag of one's own color, then this could be done, I suppose. this would limit the cases of sending a party of fake civilians to take down a flag. Which springs another question: should the Civilians be allowed to party in this game design? If Civilians only solo, it can explain what kind of players will play as civilians, and what kind will play soldiers, while keeping them both happy. If Civilians can band, what kind of content should they expect, as a group?
I am still dubious about that. I don't know. Maybe the image of a strong leader of a weak group singlehandedly taking down a medium group with its medium leader, and helping up along the ranking theprivates of his group somehow makes me wonder about this.
Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of the specialization of the skills of the officers. I would love to see the specialization "immediate recruitment" and "back-up specialist", which would allow the officer to recruit any private and buff him to look like a lvl 15 or 25 guy, but without the related skills, and would lower the respawn time of his soldiers, in order to have as many of them as possible the moment the mission ends. But I don't see this as a "tactical choice". more like a "Power Gaming Option". Which are not the same. Having specializations is a great feature, but it should be done so that the specializations favours the group, not the individuals. Having a specialization "berzerker" goes just in the wrong way. It may help lower the received damages on yourself, but it shouldn't help your group, unless everyone has the same skill, in which case, you could have an additional bonus for group behavior.
RANDOM STARTING LOCATIONS:
It is all starting to make sense. Now, I think that this MAY be useful. Imagine having to choose from the beginning what kind of alignment you want for your character. Depending on your choices, you may be landed randomly on one of those locations your faction presently owns. This way, you won't have ALL your characters in one place. This should help creating a sense of belonging to a FACTION, not only to a town or a particular group. And I think I've got a background story brewing about that. And it should involve religions, heirloom and domination.
CHARACTERS AND DEVELOPMENT:
I still think that a player should have the choice of deleting one of his characters, if this character has been stuck dead for too long, in order to have the opportunity to start a new fresh character. If he should choose to do so, said character would be deprived from the opportunity to access hero status and be revived as a "undead hero".
And I was toying around with the idea of ranking and downranking. Since the up-ranking allows you to create bigger parties in order to PvP in the RvR war, what would Down-ranking do? Would it cast your character out of a militarized faction for a time, forcing you to regain your ranks later on? Would it allow you to create a Civilian Group which would have random access to previous officer's buff, thanks to you? What could happen?
As for the PvE, I am still unsure. I think there should be a large fauna, in order to provide game, for the dinner of soldiers, but said game should be hunted. And usually, animals tend to FLEE before humans. therefore, it would be either specialized hunters, spies or archers which would go in order to sustain their group, on a long siege situation. Question: If one can put a city to siege, should food be considered? then should there be Farming NPCs and Cattle farmers NPCs? Should they be protected and fought for in the same manner as natural resources?
I agree with both the "food" point and the "healer"s ranking points" point.
They are quite good, in fact. A healer is NOT likely to kill anything, I think, so he should take a portion of the points awarded to those he healed for some time after he healed them, without depriving them from said points. The points the healer receives hsould just be additional. And possibly, if the healer is forced to take an active part to the battle, anything he actually takes down should bring him twice as much ranking points as normal, just for the sheer "extraordinarity" of the fact.
As for the "food supply", I agree that food should NOT be a major concern. Your idea of having boosting foods is way better, since it is optional. By the way, I think that, no matter what we do, the non-human MOBS should NEVER, IN ANY WAY, be allowed to carry money around. There just isn't pockets on their fur or scales, so it's not fair to find 5 gold coins on a spider. On the other hand, you may be able to use most of what you loot from animals for crafting.
For the problem of money, I think that money should not be found, but created with the player, and awarded for accomplished missions, as normal payment in the army. This way, it would force the players to concentrate on TRADING goods, instead of SELLING goods. The crafting of weapons would be made from ore and special woods gathered by the players, crafted by same or other players, and traded for something to other players, be it another kind of good or simply safety and continued gaming experience. Ingame currency should only be there to shorten the path from HAVE NOT to HAVE. You should have the choice between taking the long path of going to fetch the elements for your crafted armor and your crafted weapons PLUS the reward for the crafter, or simply paying him with currency to get your objects without trouble. But it should be made thoughtfully.
On second thought, maybe having to go on a sidequest to get ALL the elements for weaponry EACH TIME YOU NEED TO UPGRADE would be quite fast tedious. So It may not be a very good option. But the principle of NOT having money on non-human mobs still seems reasonable to me, thus pushing towards PvP situations, to get money from the corpse. But you would need to develop the speciality Scavenger... Blah!! no easy way out of it...
Healers Healers take part in battles also, depending on how the game implement them, healers may melee not as bad as most healers in other MMORPG. They can't be as wimpy because in PvP there is no 'provoke'. Note that if your whole flag wear the same uniform, the enemy can't tell what class you are. If you look at warcraft, the medics actually have stronger armor than the marines. A healer won't have the attack skills and defensive skills, but they can still hack and slash and wear heavy armor without getting asthma attacks. So maybe for one or two important battles they can wear heavy armor, but not continuously. The rank points and xp you can get in a battle is probably shared for the Flag. The rules will be similar to normal 5 to 6 characters xp parties. Under what situations should an individual rightfully claim more rank points than the other members? Are those circumstances frequent enough to require more detailed reward rules?
Some situations:
1) The ambush Flag was so successful that the enemy was annihilated before the healer of the Flag had to heal anyone. And the healer certainly didn't participate in the battle. Does the healer deserve rank points? For being there 'just in case'? Should those who attacked get more rank points than the healer?
2) Suppose the Flag was full of newbies, fighting against a higher level Flag. The commander expected that he would need three healers to keep the newbies alive, but he could only find two. However, those two healers were pretty smart and the Flag won. The 'healer gets rank points after healing' rule works well here because they will indeed absorb a lot of rank points, that would have been shared among 3 healers.
For situation 1, we might say that the healer shouldn't get rank points. Because if those emergency situations do happen in the future, the healer is going to get the fair amount back. Suppose a healer gets the amount of rank points based on the ratio of hp he healed the attacker. Then if we assume that a normal 8v8 fight will result with 4 survivors, then this means that the healer has to heal approximately the hp of 4 characters. This means that the healer will heal 50% of each member of the flag, which correspond to the healer getting 267% of rank points compared to the other fighters. Since this is supposed to be the normal case, we we the 267% to deduce the scaling ratio which is 0.375. What does this mean? If in a fight, the healer healed 800% of the hps (healing one character full 8 times), the healer will get 160% rank point, while each other member will get 91.5%.
Money Mobs should not have money. In this game, there will be almost no vendor near the frontline. The items that characters can get will mostly be crafted by other players. While they might still use money as a currency, I would expect most of the character would not be carrying the supplies for synthesis, so if you want something made, you need to provide the supplies to the crafter. It will be like: "If you want this special bow made, bring me the materials and I will make it for you." Note that the crafter is not charging you since synthesis is not always successful. There will be materials coming from monsters that cannot be soloed. So members of the Flag might go out and hunt together. Any character can also set up bazaars.
The idea of having characters receive payment may not be necessary, because there is no upkeep. A similar question involves how a Flag distribute its other supplies, such as arrows. When those supplies arrive, who can get what, and how much? Should the soldiers buy from those supplies?
I think we have hit a misunderstanding or problem in comprehension of the problem here.
I thought there would be TWO major ways of attributing XP in a group. the FIRST would be "to each his own", rewarding each character for the kills he made himself and the SECOND "Equal Share", equitably attributing a share of the XP gained by any member of the group, depending on total level's percentage.
The first would allow the healer to gain a percentage of the characters he healed, in exact proportion of the HP he healed the character for, without the healed character loosing any XP. The healer is actually gaining XP for Healing, not forcing any XP out of other characters, which would be most unpleasing.
The second would allow the healer to gain XP just for standing around a group, no matter if he was involved in the action or not. This way, a high level character could help a low level one up.
I think I would favor neither the one nor the other, for two reasons. In a "to each his own" XP system, still kills will be abundant, and therefore it will be difficult to determine how the healer can get XP, if the XP is attributed to a stealer. But the "equal share" is also loosing its appeal, since it doesn't promote action. So I've come up with a third idea, blending happily the two.
What if the XP was attributed, like in many MMORPGs, regarding how much damage you had dealt? The XP is given at the death of the mob no matter what, but you receive only a percentage of total XP equal to the percentage of damage you have dealt. In this way, a lowbie can get helped up, as long as he takes a part in the action. But most important, the healer would receive a share of the XP regarding how much damage he healed. Being a healer in a group that goes on killing rats without being touched should NOT be rewarded with XP. On the other hand, being in a group that goes on hunting bigger game, you should receive as many XP points as you heal HP points. This way, you could provide a different progression scale for the healers, and still let them have fun doing what they like, that is healing. Plus, if they took a part in the killings, they could receive a share of the combat XP. Landing a blow or two on a boss could help the XP grow faster...
I don't know. Do you have any idea if this might work?
