@disposalist lore is an elegant system to solve over camping for sure. It is also very easy to implement and understood by players as it has been around a while.
I think one thing about the diminishing return is it dose not have to be a specific item it can be a range of super rare items from a monster’s loot table that could affect your drop rate. I am not sure this is for sure what we would want but if a monster has 6 rare item drops just because they get one lore item would not for sure make the person give up the camp. They could be camping it for all 6 items.
I also want to note what my main goals are for diminishing.
Vandraad said:Counterfleche said:Ranarius said:"What policies and/or design ideas could be in place to encourage friendly game play around high-demand content while holding to the open world concept"
In another thread, we have been arguing the merits of whether Pantheon should put systems / restrictions in place to reduce the toxicity that players competing over limited resources can cause. Please continue to use that thread to discuss IF and HOW MUCH Pantheon should have/do this. This thread is specifically for suggestions on what systems / restrictions you would like to see. These really need their own thread so they don't get burried in the other thread and so they can be discussed on their merits without derailing the other discussion.
Here are some suggestions:
- Spread around some of the most sought-after loot so that it drops from multiple sources. Joppa mentioned this idea in one of the recent streams.
- Have the actual bosses spawn in multiple locations, making it hard/impossible to lock down a spawn.
- Have specific gatekeeper bosses spawn that drop keys. The key unlocks the boss room. It's not instanced, but because the team chooses when to begin, they will be ready for it and can wait if another group is nearby. This is my favorite idea because the game can still create scarcisty but avoids doing it via spawn camping. Instead, teams need to work to set loose the boss. They can collect the keys as fast or slow as they want, allowing them to break it up into mulitple sessions. This makes it casual-friendly without sacrificing the difficulty.
- Create diminishing returns to reduce extended camping or even only allow a change of getting the prized loot on the first attempt of each day.
- Limit each character to only looting each unique item once to eliminate farming.
- Create some kind of lore-based mob that will spawn in increasing numbers and aggro. This can be used to 'chase out' groups that have been camping a spawn too long.
- Reduce the drop rate substatially if a character is much higher level to curtail high levels farming lower level content.
Why did you put in 2 punishments and think that they would lead to encouraging friendly gameplay? The two punishments are diminishing returns and looting each unique item once.
Why should I be punished if I want to spend hours upon hours sitting in the same area, with a group of friends (even bringing in new people when other log out), why should that be punished? Clearly there is something that keeps me in that location and if I have time time to do it, I'm not going to leave till I get it.
Here's the thing. You're trying to punish the individual, but this is a grouping game. If a group of 6 has just 1 person staying in it for hours upon end, rotating in random people as other decide to leave, how would you punish the individual that stays with these stupid diminishing returns? All 6 people might want the item that drops so would that 1 person staying affect the drop rate for everyone? If so, you're now punishing 5 people for the acts of just 1. And what if that person who stays is, as new people come in and the item drops, is doing a /random 100 and losing every time? Clearly that individual isn't requiring that he gets the items, leaving it up to equal chance for everyone. You still think that person should be punished?
As for your next punishment, that of lotting each unique item once. Define unique item. Also, most games make such items, especially raid items, both NoDrop and Lore so unless you destroy the first one you got, you aren't able to loot a 2nd one. But even that doesn't stop farming. Have you ever seen people selling loot rights? Someone farms the mob in question, gets the item to drop then auctions off the rights to loot the corpse. No takers? Item is destroyed and the corpse allowed to rot. You think your suggestion is going to stop that? No, it won't.
Punishments do not encourage nicety, it encourages people to think of ways to get around it to still do what they want.
EDIT: Oh, and what exactly do you mean by "getting the prized loot on the first attempt of each day." Define what starts the 'first attempt' and also 'each day'. Is that in-game day? Real day? If real day, is that based upon the region in which the server is set? How would that affect people needing to play on servers outside their timezone? Sooo many problems with this idea. Glad VR wouldn't ever think about implementing something so horribly terrible.
Are you having a bad day every day lately Vandraad? Even got insulting at the end there. And in a thread looking to encourage friendliness, too :^(
To return to the discussion...
You don't think punishments encourage friendly game play? Ok, maybe not, but they sure can discourage unfriendly game play. Also what you've picked on isn't all that was suggested. I don't believe it was suggested that any would 'fix' the problem alone or even all together were the perfect solution. They were only suggestion points to kick off a discussion...
Got any ideas that *would* help, maybe?
You don't think you should be negatively encouraged (punished) to move on from a camp if you are rotating through other players? Not a bad point. Clearly you wouldn't want to 'punish' someone so lovely and sharing.
So, got any ideas on how to only encourage movement in those *not* sharing with others so wonderfully as like you describe?
What about those that only 'share' with a sequence of guild mates and mule characters over the course of several days? Is that ok, maybe?
You think there are complications with diminishing returns for an individual in a dynamic group game. Yeah, I think you are right.
Got any ideas on how it *might* work, like an expansion of the 'lore' concept maybe?
You think the concept of selling looting rights makes the ideas pointless? Well, it's a wrinkle, yes. Off the top of my head, how about only group members involved in a kill can loot "lore" items?
In my experience, things like selling loot rights caused a lot of bad feeling and unpleasantness. Only the selling of (epic) quest "no drop" items (via Multi-questing, a dodgy semi-exploit where you could hand-in part of a quest hand-in for someone else) caused more strife. Both lead to very unpleasant camping/farming situations.
Got any ideas on something that might fix that?
As for "getting the prized loot on the first attempt of each day"; isn't it pretty obvious what is meant? Do people really have to have a perfectly logical and detailed idea before it's worth putting up for discussion? I took it to mean if you get a rare drop from a monster, you might not get another from that monster of that quality for 24 hours. I could be slightly wrong, but either way I think I get the concept and don't feel the need to go on the attack because it's maybe not precise enough.
Why not use your powers for good, Van? If you're going to pick apart someones ideas so aggressively, why not go the last step and help sort them out after?
And anyway, they were just suggestions to kick off a discussion, not an attack on your person.
P.S. Yes, I know, I am regularly guilty of being over-sensitive, over-opinionated and even somewhat aggressive. Some might say this very post is somewhat passive-aggressive. I'm trying to do better ;^)
One thing that occurs to me after reading Vandraad's comment is this: I only really want to discourage people 'hogging' a camp.
I wasn't really concerned about someone camping for any length of time as long as they aren't refusing to share or consider any compromise.
I do have *some* economic concerns from farming of items, but that isn't my primary concern.
I wonder if there's a way to only effect those refusing to share? Even more tricky, I know, but you clever folk might have an idea?!
Also, I'm less concerned (though it is still an issue) over those camping/farming if they are of the appropriate level.
That could be addressed by making monsters not drop rare loot if they are 'grey' (trivial /con) to any of a group?
disposalist said:Why not use your powers for good, Van? If you're going to pick apart someones ideas so aggressively, why not go the last step and help sort them out after?
And anyway, they were just suggestions to kick off a discussion, not an attack on your person.
I had no issues at all with the rest of his suggestions and would suppor them being included in any game. It was the 2 I felt were wholly unecessary, and terrible enough that even seeing iterations on them would not be something I could get behind. So no, I wouldn't put in any more effort to come up with a better idea.
No desire to see any kind of diminishing returns on items or xp for being in a spot too long.
Unique dropping is something I would be okay with, either lootable one time per character or one time per x months. Already wearing the FBSS on your main? Well you can either take it off and give it to your alt, engage in the trade market, find a crafted equivalent, or earn it later on with your alt.
If you wanted to stop people then just selling looting rights there are ways to do that too, one way would be to not allow the group to have complete control over the corpse. If after x minutes the player/group has not looted the corpse then it rots for them and others would still see the corpse for another 15 seconds or so and be free to loot whatever was left behind.
Iksar said:No desire to see any kind of diminishing returns on items or xp for being in a spot too long.
Unique dropping is something I would be okay with, either lootable one time per character or one time per x months. Already wearing the FBSS on your main? Well you can either take it off and give it to your alt, engage in the trade market, find a crafted equivalent, or earn it later on with your alt.
If you wanted to stop people then just selling looting rights there are ways to do that too, one way would be to not allow the group to have complete control over the corpse. If after x minutes the player/group has not looted the corpse then it rots for them and others would still see the corpse for another 15 seconds or so and be free to loot whatever was left behind.
Hmm once per X months. Thats not bad either. A bit more flexible than only once ever but still will prevent one person from getting 32 copies of the same item and dumping them on the market.
I should say that I am talking more about valuable rare items and not the semi trash items that kinda commonly drop. If the fungi tunic was only gotten by turning in the flawless heart of the fungi king to the Mushroom Collector of Kelethin(not real) and he only had one to give you or it would take him 3 months to make a second you would not have seen the same people camping it 24/7.
If this idea was posted somewhere else forgive me.
What if instead of diminishing returns or loot restrictions the named gets increasing returns. The longer a player or group stays at the same camp the stronger or more diffuclt that camp gets. The named boss spawns and says "Oh it's YOU again? I'm going to have to pull out a new trick from my bag of tricks" or "Oh it's YOU again?! I'm going to call in extra reinforcements" and he spawns a friend or two.
Maybe the increasing returns rate is based on the level of the player/group camping it. If it's deamed an appropriate level group the increasing return is very slow and/or non-existent. The higher the level of the group/player the steeper the increasing return rate becomes. I don't know, just another idea.
Ranarius said:The longer a player or group stays at the same camp the stronger or more diffuclt that camp gets.
How do you define 'a group'? If just one person stays while the other 5 rotate out over the course of some hours, does that mean the 5 people should be punished by having more difficult content shoved in their face? 5 get punished because of the 1?
You (using the generic 'you' meaning everyone out there) would really be supportive of that, coming into a group not knowing that 1 person had been there for hours and are faced with drastaically increased difficulty and, possibly, reduced opportunity for loot? Would you really like having to ask every group you join how long each person had been there?
And if the content did increase in difficulty, just how far up would that go? And what happens when another group moves in, expecting 'normal' NPCs but instead gets hammered by content left over from that group that just left?
Vandraad Brings up a good point about joining an ongoing group. Unless the game somehow tells you what the drop rate currently is at, there is no way of knowing that someone in the group might have looted the item 3-4 times making another drop almost imposable. I like having mystery in my drops and I think if the game told you what the drop rate was people would be able to use that information to identify the rare drops from a named faster.
We need to be careful as to not have a fix for one prroblem that then makes the game worse in other area. I still think diminishing return could work but would need something to address that issue first.
Vandraad I posted a few ideas that would alleviate some of your concerns and I am sorry I just do not have the time to address all your concerns one at a time. I do hope you will read my posts above though.
starblight said:Vandraad Brings up a good point about joining an ongoing group. Unless the game somehow tells you what the drop rate currently is at, there is no way of knowing that someone in the group might have looted the item 3-4 times making another drop almost imposable. I like having mystery in my drops and I think if the game told you what the drop rate was people would be able to use that information to identify the rare drops from a named faster.
We need to be careful as to not have a fix for one prroblem that then makes the game worse in other area. I still think diminishing return could work but would need something to address that issue first.
Vandraad I posted a few ideas that would alleviate some of your concerns and I am sorry I just do not have the time to address all your concerns one at a time. I do hope you will read my posts above though.
I understand what you are wanting from it, but I really do question your motives. You said above that "Minimize prolonged camping of named mobs". I'm betting that you want to prevent other people from prolonged camping because, I suspect, you've been prevented from camping some item at the time of your choosing. So you got angry and disappointed that you couldn't do what you wanted when you wanted. You desired, and sitll do, to punish those people who were in your way.
But here's the problem with what you want: Do you want the same thing applied to you? Do you want the game to make some arbitraty decision that punishes you for just playing the game? To have the game determine that you need to go do something else? Not just XPing in some specific spot for 'too long', but anything? Like you've spent to much time working on tradeskills so now your failure rate skyrockets? Or that you've spent too much time gathering so now most of the harvesting nodes, for just you, will now all be empty?
Would you truly be happy with that happening to you?
The solution for this isn't to punish people for camping a given mob for a specific piece of loot, its to have multiple types of of that item to appear around the world. Take the Flowing Black Silk Sash from EQ1. Yeah, everyone wanted it because it was the only haste item you could get in group only content. But if there were lots of FBSS type items out there, for the same slot (or different slots but that itself is a huge problem to solve), then the chance for you to camp a haste item increases as there are more options to choose from. EQ1 had 1 specific item tied to 1 specific mob...for a full server of thousands of players. We know now that is a terrible design.
The solution just isn't your solution.
Vandraad said:
How do you define 'a group'? If just one person stays while the other 5 rotate out over the course of some hours, does that mean the 5 people should be punished by having more difficult content shoved in their face? 5 get punished because of the 1?
You (using the generic 'you' meaning everyone out there) would really be supportive of that, coming into a group not knowing that 1 person had been there for hours and are faced with drastaically increased difficulty and, possibly, reduced opportunity for loot? Would you really like having to ask every group you join how long each person had been there?And if the content did increase in difficulty, just how far up would that go? And what happens when another group moves in, expecting 'normal' NPCs but instead gets hammered by content left over from that group that just left?
You always have very good questions, I certainly appreciate your critical thinking approach. For now I'll just say "it's an idea, it's not my job to figure out HOW it works, but if it is possible, someone maybe could figure it out."
It's tough for me to answer your questions though because I'm not in support of any of these things. I'm on the other end of the spectrum but I still want to try to participate in throwing out ideas so I'll try.
So...Every time a group member swaps out it's a new group. Yes, I realize a level 50 camping level 20 mobs could just say "paying 5 plat for someone to join my group for a minute" or whatever. That's fine with me if they want to go through the trouble. Also the lower level players in the zone have to be willing to support that behavior, and in that case they're choosing to allow that player to continue camping that mob.
It continues to increase in difficulty until the player can no longer kill it. And it wouldn't be left over when the player leaves because the increase in strength doesn't happen when the mob spawns, it happens when the player engages the mob and reverts back when combat ends.
Well, I tried. Like I said, I'm not really in support of the idea, but if I were, that's my first attempt at making it work.
Edit: I don't like the idea of mobs morphing and becoming stronger in this way (makes no sense in the world) but I also don't like the idea of diminishing returns or limitted loot for the same exact reason.
Vandraad said:EQ1 had 1 specific item tied to 1 specific mob...for a full server of thousands of players. We know now that is a terrible design.
This is a good example of my opinion on all of this. I never got an FBSS and I played for several years, all on one character. Yes I wanted one, and I never got one. I also felt like that was just the way it was in that world. I never felt like someone did something to me, or prevented me from getting it. I just didn't get it. Didn't hurt my feelings, didn't make me want to quit...it just was. And I lived with it. I just don't get why so many people feel entitled to any specific item. You might or might not get it, isn't it OK for that to be part of the world? So, to attempt to tie this into the topic, I choose to play friendly even when I don't get the item I want. I choose to play friendly even when someone else is at the camp that I've been waiting for. How do I get other people to do the same? I have no idea :-p
Ranarius said:So...Every time a group member swaps out it's a new group.
That is how I would interpret it as well. The diminishing return, then, only triggers when it's the same 6 people camping the same thing for hours on end. But that doesn't really solve the initial problem of 'a group' camping some piece of content for hours. Unless you're getting cycled into the group, looking at it from the outside it still boils down to some group being in your way, stopping you from doing what you want when you want.
One might see a single, unchanging group camping some named mob for hours on end as worse a thing thn a group that morphs over time as people cycle in and out camping the same mob for hours on end. I see them as being no different if you're not one of the people who gets in said group.
Hmm well lets see over the years I have had two instances were camps caused me any issue at all. Both in EQ the ancient cyclops and Phinigel Autropos. Both with a little time I was able to get. But in both those situations I did not see the item as much of a choice. It was something I wanted bad enough I made sure I put in the time to get it. Sure, I ran into other situations but none that caused me that much trouble as I just moved on. I actually like the idea of not getting everything I want and I agree with Ranarius thoughts on this.
I would be ok with the diminishing return idea I described and I think most players wouldn’t even run into the limitations. Would I be happy if? Wow that is a lot of ifs… well sure I could come up with lots of things I would not be happy with. Heck I am annoyed my chocolate chip mint ice-cream is not green anymore. It’s the small things that matter. I would need to know more about the ifs and what reason such limitation was being added.
A very good example of this is I do not like to have death penalties. But without death penalties the game has no risk and feels empty so given the choice I would pick a death penalties and I am in agreement with Zorkon that based on a lot of opinions here exp might not be enough.
Similar loot dropping in more then one location limiting the need to camp one camp is a great idea and it sounds like VR already plans on doing that. I agree with you and them that it is a great idea.
It seems I might not have been clear on why I think diminishing return might be a good idea to add. I do not want to stop people from farming or camping. I want to stop them from doing it for prolonged periods even though they have received the loot not once but many times. If they have never received the rare drop and they want to keep camping or farming let them.
One thing I think might help to encourage sharing: Increased loot drop chance for groups - or perhaps decreased for solo folks, if you don't want to think of items proliferating badly (though that could be fixed by "lore" rules).
What I encountered a lot in P99 was high level (over-level) characters solo, or maybe duo, camping a known spawn with known good (saleable) loot drop and being utterly unwilling to share the chance of the drop, because they can manage the encounter on their own and why share if it does you no good, eh? (apart from for your soul hehe)
If, like increasing XP for a group, there were an increase in rare loot chance for groups, perhaps people would be fine with sharing camps knowing it wouldn't actually reduce their chance at the loot?
With added measures to reduce overall proliferation, what do we think?
I would kinda like to open out the discussion, with the OP's permission, to include *any* measures that would encourage increased friendliness, not just related to camping.
The XP (and loot drop) increase for groups is one. How great would it be to go further than to encourage grouping, but to encourage multiple groups to work together and not trip each other up?
What I'm about to describe is a not-thought-through-at-all idea just to get the ball rolling and let you know what I mean: A Proximity Non-Interference Buff. If a group or raid party stays in proximity of another group or raid as they take on an encounter - without any interference - they gain a buff. This means if they let the original group have their turn, they will be buffed for their attempt if the original group wipes.
As I say - not thought through and not expected to be a 'good' idea - but hopefully you see what I mean. How great would it be for people to be encouraged to share and cooperate and socialise positively "You go first, please", "No, no, you go first"... Rather than trip and jostle, grumble and bicker? How great would it be if, when you see another group coming to your camp you thought "oh, good!" not "oh, no!"?
Vandraad said:disposalist said:Why not use your powers for good, Van? If you're going to pick apart someones ideas so aggressively, why not go the last step and help sort them out after?
And anyway, they were just suggestions to kick off a discussion, not an attack on your person.
I had no issues at all with the rest of his suggestions and would suppor them being included in any game. It was the 2 I felt were wholly unecessary, and terrible enough that even seeing iterations on them would not be something I could get behind. So no, I wouldn't put in any more effort to come up with a better idea.
Though I think the concept is good and worthy of discussion (and that's what these forums are for, surely?), on reflection of this discussion I agree that diminishing returns in a world with shared loot and dynamic grouping is seeming undoable.
To be clear, without diminishing returns, you don't like the idea "limit each character to only looting each unique item once to eliminate farming" either? Maybe if it wasn't just one item, but a few? Or if it were one per X days?
I mean, there will almost certainly be "lore" items, which is a similar concept. What would you think of the expansion of the "lore" concept to help with mitigating farming?
To be clear, as I've said elsewhere, it's not really farming I have an issue with so much as the permacamping and refusal to share with others (and subsequent unpleasantness) that can occur. If someone is farming a camp and not blocking anyone else then *shrug* who cares (apart from the economic effect), *but* if there are plenty of other similar loot drops (as Joppa has suggested) and maybe some kind of time limit on farming (as suggested) then it will just mean farmers need to move around more and give up camps more, but won't be 'stopped' as such. The problem may be sufficiently mitigated.
Counterfleche said:Ranarius said:"What policies and/or design ideas could be in place to encourage friendly game play around high-demand content while holding to the open world concept"
Here are some suggestions:
- Spread around some of the most sought-after loot so that it drops from multiple sources. Joppa mentioned this idea in one of the recent streams.
- This is being implemented with wandering nameds- as exemplified in one fo the first Blackrose keep streams
- Have the actual bosses spawn in multiple locations, making it hard/impossible to lock down a spawn.
- see above Fion can spawn in a number of places, I think it wa mentioned she can spaen in kitchen outside, or upstairs. Uopstairs on the ramparts is also a higher level (gnomes jumping their "Hello!")
- Have specific gatekeeper bosses spawn that drop keys. The key unlocks the boss room. It's not instanced, but because the team chooses when to begin, they will be ready for it and can wait if another group is nearby. This is my favorite idea because the game can still create scarcisty but avoids doing it via spawn camping. Instead, teams need to work to set loose the boss. They can collect the keys as fast or slow as they want, allowing them to break it up into mulitple sessions. This makes it casual-friendly without sacrificing the difficulty.
- So far, the mechanic in place that may be capitalized upon can be seen in the Gnashura room with the Jim Lee stream. In this case the key depended on perception.
- Create diminishing returns to reduce extended camping or even only allow a change of getting the prized loot on the first attempt of each day.
- A mofied version of this currently exists in a 21yr old MMO. Current "collect X before you can progress" tasks are so coded(?) so that if each player needs to be flagged as looting 5 of said item. However, as each player loots their allotment the percentage of drops declines. This is sort of an implemented time-sink ( not sync, because "sync" is short for syncronization, not a place for dumping like a heat "sink" on a computer chip) that can get annoying as it takes longer to bget the drops for each player, and the longest for the last. Players have worked around this by not looting the items at all and rather leaving the corpses until all the items have been accounted for, and then the entire group looting all at once saving time and defeating the diminishing return. I suspect some player work around may also be discovered.
- Limit each character to only looting each unique item once to eliminate farming
- Lore, No trade, No drop, I would add a flag to this per player. Let those who complain that they cannot sell it or give it to their family, be so exposed as secret Ferenghi. likewise complaining about loss of exp on death, it was never an issue, never for those who played.
- Create some kind of lore-based mob that will spawn in increasing numbers and aggro. This can be used to 'chase out' groups that have been camping a spawn too long.
- point 1, wandering nameds, there will not be one camp where one mob wil spawn in the same spot. If players choose to play in the style where they "camp" one spot, that is their choice whether the name spawns in that camp or not is out of their control. If players choose to play in the style where they "crawl" that is their choice and both will have the same chance at spawning the same named, or other nameds!. But based on how nameds will spawn with their loot tables, there will not be one specific place where they will spawn, so those campers can camp as long as they want to, and not copmplain if the named pops on up on the ramparts and the leaping gnomes get it, instead of down stairs in the kitchen where they are "camping" but be happy in the knowledge that it may spawn there, at some time.
- Reduce the drop rate substatially if a character is much higher level to curtail high levels farming lower level content.
- somewhat similar to trivial loot code, this is fine if there is a way to curtail exp so you can do those quests you've heard about in distant lands that the newbies all do over there. This somewhat encourages a meta-questing stance at an early level, getting all the faction in all the starting cities and the BiS newbie item from each of those humble quests before moving on to explore the world. Only problem is that this coding tends to overlay onto tradeskill items. The response is, well just buy it from newbies, but then in years to come, there are no more newbies and you spend hours just to get two spiderling silks. The idea of horizontal leveling would do away with this as every newbie zone would still kill you because your level never changes, you just get better at how you kill or learn better spells- like AE spells or skills. This idea got closer to the DnD model and a possibly welcome shift away from current MMO player design as you would never level up, you would just get better at what you do and obtain better weapons/gear tied to skill. But at least the newbie area is still crowded, and not empty.
But since levels are in, then modified trivial loot code so trade skill items are not affected and deal with keeping newbie areas populated as a seperate issue- solved with pure horizontal leveling- and making quest items or armors, lore to prevent camping which would also mean newbies could loot from corpses that are already dead from a camped group which may beget said group to selling loot rights and unable to complain once the corpse opens up and becomes unlocked as a free for all, creating a situation where hoardes of newbies are lurking around actual players- waiting to be the first to ninja-loot once the corpse unlocks.
StoneFish said: Caught griefing, jail. Harassment, jail. You fail to pay attention, believe it or not jail. You're a caster and don't bring Mana foods, jail. You under cook potion, jail Jail jail jail
Oh goodness. I don't know if I was supposed to laugh, but I did. This is a Great work.
The Diminishing Returns suggestion has seemed to draw the most attention and ire. Yes, it would be challenging to implement in a team game setting. Some of the other suggestions, like making the sought-after items lore drops (and putting a timer on how long until you can get the same item again) are better.
Doford said:Are we expected to learn all these rules? I don't think loads of rules that limit how we play will make everyone friendly.
For the most part, I think rules won't work very well and and I think the best solution is programming the game to either not allow or at least not encourage toxic competative behavior. When players benefit from bad behavior, expect bad behavior. Rules don't really work very well but system limitations do. Players don't attack other players on PvE servers because the system prevents them from attacking each other, not because they all are following rules. While I do think Pantheon needs a code of conduct so everyone knows what's expected of them, the proper fix is to prevent the toxic behavior from even working. Many of the people who engage in toxic behavior do so only because there is some benefit to them for engaging in that behavior--remove the benefit and most of the bad behavior goes away with it.
Vandraad said:Why did you put in 2 punishments and think that they would lead to encouraging friendly gameplay? The two punishments are diminishing returns and looting each unique item once.
It's a diminishing / limited return, not a punishment. Leveling works the same way--as you get higher level, you get less xp each level from the same mobs until you don't get any at all, but that's not a punishment either. And I don't think what I've suggested encourages friendly gameplay so much as it discourges unfriendly gameplay.
Vandraad said:Why should I be punished if I want to spend hours upon hours sitting in the same area, with a group of friends (even bringing in new people when other log out), why should that be punished? Clearly there is something that keeps me in that location and if I have time time to do it, I'm not going to leave till I get it.
Because Pantheon is not an instanced game, it means we have limited resources. This means we need to share if we want a healthy game community. Imagine if Disneyland let people ride a ride as many times as they wanted and most days groups would stay on rides for hours, never getting off? It would create an unhealthy, toxic environment very quickly and most people would stop going.
Vandraad said:You're trying to punish the individual, but this is a grouping game. If a group of 6 has just 1 person staying in it for hours upon end, rotating in random people as other decide to leave, how would you punish the individual that stays with these stupid diminishing returns?
That's a very good point and I hadn't considered it when I made my initial suggestions. Some things, like XP rate, could diminish for only some team members, but loot drops couldn't.
Vandraad said:As for your next punishment, that of lotting each unique item once. Define unique item. Also, most games make such items, especially raid items, both NoDrop and Lore so unless you destroy the first one you got, you aren't able to loot a 2nd one. But even that doesn't stop farming. Have you ever seen people selling loot rights? Someone farms the mob in question, gets the item to drop then auctions off the rights to loot the corpse. No takers? Item is destroyed and the corpse allowed to rot. You think your suggestion is going to stop that? No, it won't.
Loot selling can also be minimized. For example, make it so that high value items can only be looted by a member of the team which got the looting rights. But we don't have to completely eliminate all possible senarios. As long as we substantially reduce bad behavior, it will make a big improvement. It's not all or nothing.
disposalist said:One thing that occurs to me after reading Vandraad's comment is this: I only really want to discourage people 'hogging' a camp.
I wasn't really concerned about someone camping for any length of time as long as they aren't refusing to share or consider any compromise.
That's a good point--if no one else is waiting, then a group repeating the same spawn is just farming (which isn't great, but isn't something that needs to be stopped so long as it doesn't cause other problems). Possible ways to make this work are to vary the spawn locations or (if it's a single location), have the respawn be temporarily immune to (and not aggro) any team with a member that had last slain it. This would only last a short while, but it would be enough to allow another group to get a sufficient head start.
Vandraad said:disposalist said:Why not use your powers for good, Van? If you're going to pick apart someones ideas so aggressively, why not go the last step and help sort them out after?
And anyway, they were just suggestions to kick off a discussion, not an attack on your person.
I had no issues at all with the rest of his suggestions and would suppor them being included in any game. It was the 2 I felt were wholly unecessary, and terrible enough that even seeing iterations on them would not be something I could get behind. So no, I wouldn't put in any more effort to come up with a better idea.
I'll put you down as "leaning no" for those two suggestions.
StoneFish said: Caught griefing, jail. Harassment, jail. You fail to pay attention, believe it or not jail. You're a caster and don't bring Mana foods, jail. You under cook potion, jail Jail jail jail
That's quite funny. :)
I don't think you can get rid of all the issues without going to instances, which breaks the community. Remember also, every story needs 'bad guys' and some of the most memorable moments were from seeing idiots get thier comeuppance. I can recall at least a handful of high level players that burnt thier bridges and were ejected from guilds / had to move server / could not get people to help with thier corpse recovery. I also remember good / reasonable people whom would rotate camps and share spawns.
With slow and hard advancment, and a fixed server pop this somewhat takes care of itself. A good CS/GM allocated to a server can help control any extreams too.
Therefore I think measures should be limited, and work on mitigation of the real idiot things. Tuning player count on each server to balance content vs. no players is just as important.
My suggestions based on the above:
RAIDS
- 2 versions of many raid bosses
i) Random version on long respawn , causes a mini event when spawns , has a full loot drop - allows competition for those whom want it. Does not impact lockout on spawnable version.
ii) Spawnable version with a lockout for anyone involved.
- Anyone with lockout flag whom gains any agro is banished from area.
- Loot rights to group that triggers spawn
- ALWAYS drops quest bits, and has same loot table as random version (but drops less).
-Positioned in an area where the raid is relativly safe from external external interferance from trains etc.
-On a shortish timer (1-2 hours) to allow multiple groups to have a go without forming a queue at hand-in.
GROUPS
All quest bosses are either:
i) Fully random over a large area
ii) Can be spawned by a handin (as per raid above).
iii) Are commo spawns , with quest loot always dropping but other items more rare.
Non Quest (Loot)
Especially good items are either:
i) Bound to player/account
ii) Limited to one loot per character (if you sell it, only way back is to buy it again) and can only be looted by contributers.
Note option (ii) would be limited to the truely good saleable items like Fungal chain in EQ. Done on an exception basisif an item proves too good.
There are ways around this, but it makes farming it non stop a PITA.
I dont like some of these ideas. Like not knowing where bosses spawn. That just going to make tentions rise as people are trying to make camps. In EQ, the commuinity just got into a rythom of adding people in line. People knew where the camps were. Doing things like this just takes away the community tools people knew back then. I say, let the communitywork it out. Thats what made EQ1, building your name and a guild rep. You mess that up, you dont get in the teams you need.