Outposts shifting to GvG

[grimjim]

Continued from other thread...

As far as I can see, a dynamic GvG OP system basically requires there to be no alliances whatsoever.

It depends on the mechanic really.
Alliance could be different affiliations than FvF. We have, somewhat, a Tryker nationalist faction, if things were mixed up a bit more you could have alliances on all sorts of grounds. Our problem, in no small part, comes from the attitude that's been picked up of a semi-monolithic faction oriented approach which, in order to survive, has necessitated the same approach from the opposite side. It may well be too late to shift this problem without some change in mechanics, at least on Arispotle.

Part of the problem is that OPs can be fought over by absolutely anyone so inclined so it becomes a matter of...

1. Numbers.
2. Levels.
3. Timing.

To determine who wins.
This can't be particularly exhilerating for the PvP lovers as you can tell, usually (but not always) within the first three rounds or so who is going to win and its sheer weight of numbers, not tactics or skill.

Why would you attack someone who helps you out?
Why would you trade crystals with someone who might attack you?
What happens when every guild has one OP? (You didn't mention it, but I often see GvG coupled with "1OP per guild")

The only way I can see this happening is if "everyone" is allied with everyone else, and only use OPs for some "PvP fun". I really doubt that's going to happen.

That would be one approach but its not satisfying from and RP/Story point of view particularly, though it could sate the competition need it would basically reduce OPs to the equivalent of a game of five-a-side football or a CS battle. I guess once R2 incorporates PvP we'll see what happens there,

For "trading up", why would you give your OP to someone who has a lower q than you do? If your answer is "Because you get another, higher, one; what happens when someone gets to the top of the ladder? Besides which, if there was no "one OP per guild" ideal, why would you give an OP to someone who may well start gunning for your higher OP pretty soon anyway?

One OP per guild is something that gets brought up quite a lot and does head off a lot of these potential problems. If you have to give yours up for a higher one that does create a chain of ownership and allows for some upward movement. The competition would gradually intensify for the high end OPs as groups levelled however. That's what trading up is, moving for a higher OP.

As for newer guilds, as soon as they attack someone, they lose a potential ally (tho I can't see how alliances would work at all in this theoretical situation) and make an "enemy". Assuming they fail their attack, they stay without crystals - likely enough there's no reason for anyone else to give them crystals to lvl up with (they might come after you next) and the people they attacked sure wouldn't give them any crystals.

I think part of this has to come from having more reasons to have outposts and more ways to acheive them.

As soon as someone starts giving crystals to you, its kind of expected that you won't attack them. This is where alliances come in, and once you have alliances, you lose a dynamic GvG OP system.

Alliances can also be dynamic. When we held an OP we were in an alliance, it shifted and changed constantly even to the point of a formerly allied guild threatening to attack because things weren't going their way. The alliance was also across factional bounds. We see hints of this in the way that the KA is really more like the MA and in the Tryker nationalism, so there are hints that this monolithic struggle CAN be broken down into smaller chunks but the lead needs to come from somewhere.

That's not really GvG then is it? It's more like alliance vs alliance, and the "most logical" routes for alliances to form is along faction boundaries, which then gets back to FvF.

The civ leaders copped out on this though and basically said its nothing to do with them, seemingly happy to have their land annexed - which didn't make much sense to me.

If we still had more moderates I expect we'd see a bit more dynamism going on.

No, I think the changes have to come at a mechanical level, at least somewhat. Greater variety, more reasons to own outposts, things that directly and only benefit the guild owning them perhaps to encourage some internal alliance/faction competition over them.

And in there somewhere was the old "limit the number of combatants" idea which has been done to death.. I really hope you don't expect me to make those points again? Following that was some "positive feedback" stuff which I didn't get into because I thought Sehr and riv were doing quite a good enough job of proving you wrong.

The limiting combatants idea is one of the best that has sprung up, along with the 'dig on the site to produce crystals for you AND the owner' one that came up in another thread.

It would prevent size being greater than anything else and would reintroduce a tactical element,which should be more satisfying for those that like it. Alliances would still play a roll and it would allow, if not necessarily for GvG dynamism, at least a little more back and forth in the existing outpost byplay.

Ultimately I think the solution has to come from Nevrax. Reasons to hold particular outposts relevent to the guild (Say farms increase everyone's digging rate, diplomatic outposts increase fame with tribes in that area, forts give a few bonus HP to members of the holding guild, things like that) plus particular buildings with benefits to the holding guild, TPs, stables etc, things that only the holding guild can use. If the emphasis is shifted a bit more to what you get from holding an OP, as a guild, rather than the supplies that can be scattered around, that might be a nudge in the right direction.

[sehracii]

Benefits of alliance based outposts:

Harvest/craft oriented guilds can obtain one.

New players can get involved

New guilds can get involved

Outposts become a SOCIAL (not antisocial) affair. You have to make friends, make allies, work as a team with many more people then you would if it were a guild affair.

Promotes trade.

Makes it more likely to field a force for battles at odd hours (A GvG of a US West coast guild vs Euro guild would jsut attack when no one from the other side could be online)

Basically, makes it more likely the 28 most influential guilds have outposts as opposed the 28 best PvPing guilds.


IF Nevrax were to introduce non-PvP outposts then I would take another look at shifting the PvP ones to GvG.

[mrshad]

Grim, you are assuming that there is a problem.

If you are arguing that there needs to be more "balance," I invite you to look at the other servers where the Kami devils have taken over entirely. The outposts have become what they were ment to be, as no other outcome was possible. We on Aris are the moderated exception. The "KA" has shown remarkable restraint, and now I think lacks the power to take another outpost. Ma-Duk's Death Cult could band together and take all the outposts they want, but for whatever reasons, they don't. That we have reached this equilibrium is an aberation. The logical outcome should have been complete domination by the largest guild/faction. Nevrax HAD to know that before putting in the OPs...after all, every other single PVP game that allows for territory control has turned out that way.

Without system level controls, hegemony is the exepected result; as evidenced by the other two servers. As there were no such controls built in, we can infere that complete domination by one group is exactly what Neverax wanted. Therefore, requests that things be changed are futile, as it is all "working as expected".

(except for on Aris, where those damn inbred, uneducated yanks keep mucking about where they are not wanted. If they would have choosen the side of the peaceful Gaia lovers like everone else did, there wouldn't be an argument. YANKEE GO HOME!)

[sprite]

Originally Posted by sehracii

New players can get involved

^ THIS ^
Is a huge problem with the "limit the number of participants" idea...

Originally Posted by grimjim

The limiting combatants idea is one of the best that has sprung up [ ... ] It would prevent size being greater than anything else and would reintroduce a tactical element,which should be more satisfying for those that like it.

Seriously, how can you justify this when you know it would just mean that the only people with an OP would be the ones who can fill their quota with entirely AoD/CG/MasterMelee combos with the best supr gear? All I can see this doing it making it down to gear instead of tactics, politics, etc etc

Originally Posted by grimjim

Alliances would still play a roll and it would allow, if not necessarily for GvG dynamism, at least a little more back and forth in the existing outpost byplay.

I'd be very grateful if you'd explain this one to me; if the OP system was GvG, where would alliances come in? I'm sorry if I'm being dense but I really can't see anywhere that you have said definitively how alliances would fit into a system where no one needs (indeed, cannot need) any other guilds to help them.

My point here is effectively this: (I've a feeling I'll be saying something like that a few more times in the near future)
A GvG OP mechanic means by definition only one guild may participate on one side.
This means that you are unable to get help from another guild in taking your OP.
This means the guilds who are the "most uber" (ie can fill the quota with multimasters) get all the OPs, and newer/smaller guilds get none.
The only way this would not be the case is if you limited it to 1 OP per guild, and this would only mean that the "uber" guilds had the top OPs and the lower ones were ranked by number of multimasters (here I can see some tiny room for dynamic combat but I'm pretty sure it would get ranked pretty quickly and stay that way for a loooong looooong time). One presumable end result would be basically : "Best" 8 guilds hold the 250s, next "best" 8 hold the 200s, next "best" 4 hold the 150s etc...

Alongside the way the OPs would be "distributed", you also have the fact about the complete lack of incentive for anyone who wants an OP to ally with anyone else in any way that would apparently make you happy with the alliances. If any alliance did happen, I'm quite sure it would be along the lines of the socalled KA - everyone shares with everyone else and who holds which OP within the alliance is a moot point. In this situation this theoretical alliance would just slot its best guilds as high as it could, and then share all of the OP produce around so that it didn't matter who held which OP anyway. All this situation would accomplish would be making the battles shorter and stopping newer guilds & low level players getting a look-in.

Now I'll admit that this post might seem a little 2-sided to some people, but I had a "Eureka!" moment halfway through typing it when I realised nothing would really change anyway

[dakhound]

I cant see GvG working sorry end of story, anyways I dont wanna crush 1 weak guild I wanna crush a whole faction

possible things off the top of my head

when you take an outpost it is tribe aligned as well as factioned, the closest factioned tribe takes precedence. the outpost can be taken by milatary means as usual, but others wishing to take the outpost in another fashion could do missions or something to garner favour for those tribes thus lowering the overall score of the op owners. the op owners can of course work to increase their score with this tribe.

so for example

0-10 points only 10% of the guards paid for will show making it easy for the op to be taken
10-25 points 25% of the guards
25-50 points 50% of the guards
and so on

at 75%+ all the guards show as normal

just a thought more than anything to allow non PvP

ofc at 0% you could try negotiating with the tribe for ownership and take the OP.

not likely to happen tho

[rothimar]

Originally Posted by mrshad

(except for on Aris, where those damn inbred, uneducated yanks keep mucking about where they are not wanted. If they would have choosen the side of the peaceful Gaia lovers like everone else did, there wouldn't be an argument. YANKEE GO HOME!)

I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of US based players that would choose Kami over Karavan if the balance were more equal in appearances. Regardless of whether you believe Kara vs non-Kara is balanced (notice I didn't say Kara vs Kami), it certainly doesn't appear so in the Outpost holdings thread.

With the unfortunate FvF aspect afflicting the Outposts, a Guild like Covenant has no chance of ever attaining an outpost without siding with one alliance or the other. Regardless of whether or not we wish to align with a faction or alliance... the choice simply isn't there.

The Ryzom website advertises GvG, but it's non-existant with the current mechanics in place, and a desire for Guilds to form alliances.

And unfortunately, new players will be more likely to go with whatever side is "winning" to due to the resources the dominant side has to "purchase" their loyalty with cats, gear, and mats. There is a difference between offering a player assistance by donating them supplies, and offering them an incentive to join an alliance. I've experienced both.

This is the somewhat blunt explaination of the perception many of the somewhat newer players I have talked with have. While the current system may work well for those who have participated in them for quite some time, for lack of a more appropriate phrase... it sucks. I don't place the blame on this solely on Nevrax, but on those who perpetuate the factional politcs and drama which infest every thread that even remotely mentions the terms Kami or Karavan.

I would love to see the Outpost system changed to be more GvG, offering more players a chance at participating without always involving the "Big Dogs" to do so. I've been holding off on commenting too much about the Outpost situation because I've wanted to better formulate my opinions and research the matter a bit more.

One thing is for damned sure though... so long as every post about Outposts on the forums become an argument of faction, there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The key is to find a common ground and work towards it from both sides. There is no way to keep everyone happy about everything, but there is certainly got to be a halfway point that most people can accept.

And for the love of all that is sacred, can we leave factional politics OUT OF IT, and focus on a way to IMPROVE the system for ALL players?

[sprite]

Originally Posted by rothimar

I would love to see the Outpost system changed to be more GvG, offering more players a chance at participating without always involving the "Big Dogs" to do so. I've been holding off on commenting too much about the Outpost situation because I've wanted to better formulate my opinions and research the matter a bit more.

See above. GvG OPs means no OPs for newbs.

Was tempted to say "No OP for you" but it's not just you who wouldn't get one.

[sprite]

uh, doublepost O_o

[rothimar]

Originally Posted by sprite

See above. GvG OPs means no OPs for newbs.

Was tempted to say "No OP for you" but it's not just you who wouldn't get one.

Not with the current mechanics. The system needs a revamp. I don't readily have a solution to the problem, which is why I have been relatively quiet about this in the past, and once I have better forumulated my ideas... I will post them. I'm in the process of moving, so I will probably do so once I am finished with the move.

[iphdrunk]

Originally Posted by grimjim

The limiting combatants idea is one of the best that has sprung up, along with the 'dig on the site to produce crystals for you AND the owner' one that came up in another thread.

The limit of the number of combattants has been proposed. There are several issues:

- How many combattants?

- How do you avoid the "you are not 250 melee 250 ele, leave your spot to X", thus Op battles not only limited to GvG but the same N uber players defending ?

- The Guild's op is under attack but since you were afk, you cannot defend now.

I don't really see GvG being better than the current game system. What are the benefits? why should guild be limited to one only? if GvG with guilds limited to one op, let's give one OP to each guild then and be done with it -- since guilds alrady owning one "good" op have even less reason to attack another--. Politics and alliances are our deeds, not the system. And as much as I don't have an OP now, being in a solo guild is even worse for me. So one "thanks but no thanks" from me.