that is one that was supposed to be in at launch but they decided to back off from for whatever reason
My 2 cents. Let the player base fight in game over their territory status and add a maintenance cost and tax collection rates. Options PROTECTED (highest weekly maintenance cost) Lowest tax collection Setting your territory to protected means control towers are like NPC towers and can be placed around the territory. (not close enough together for full coverage). Killing someone in these territory's is instant 1000 red. A war dec on the territory resets them to normal towers. LAWFUL (normal maintenance cost) Normal tax collection This setting is as it is now. LAWLESS (no maintenance cost) Highest tax collection Same as now but no towers can be built anywhere. Obviously this is a general outline and will need in depth discussion to flesh out!
Much better than the other ideas I have seen floating around in the thread I "didn't read" Maybe remove some of the garbage mobs in those areas and add npc guards that are paid for and placed by the territory owner. Not super op but very difficult to deal with in small groups. During a siege they can be turned off or weakened maybe just less of them due to increased costs due to hazard pay.
race pvp blocking? Not sure I get it? I assume you are referring to race wars? but that didn't block anything it just created factions normal pvp on your own race was still allowed.
Coming out of lurker status because this is such an important topic for the future of our game. First a few quick opinions from the earlier points in the thread: No stat loss There needs to be some permanent character progression, and skills/spells are too easy to be considered enough. I'm going to have the stance that we need to be focusing on new player retention for many of my points, but for this one you can't piss off the vets. I know I have chosen to put a lot of hours into farming for my stats based on the assumption that they were permanent and I would be "done" with that part of my character development. Something needs to change Kudos to you and others who are acknowledging the history of Darkfall. Yes, other factors besides the pvp settings have impacted it's past failures. However this is not a fresh launch, and something more significant is needed. You can change the game without ruining what attracted us all to Darkfall in the first place. Consider "Perfect" vs "Good" when it comes to different options here and development time BPG has a better feel for marketing/deployment timelines, but please consider prioritizing changes that are "Good enough" and can be launched quickly using existing mechanics with minimal development. New player retention should be the top priority (without butchering the game) The world is amazing is based on a larger population. New mechanics should be based on the gamble that you will have a larger population and not trying to solve for current population. My views on PVP changes to loot, zones, etc... The maps posted by @kilrain are very close to what my preference would be, with a few differences: Safe Zones Around starter cities with a fairly small area including only initial spawns. Should not be designed to sustain long term in terms of the loots/resources available. Anyone who isn't Red is not attackable, no gear drop, no loot bag/backpack loot. Need to consider timers of people running in from outside areas to try and "deflag" "Yellow" Zones All of Mainland with the exception of the Safe Zones and Middle Map (Red Zone see below) Always attackable (no opinion on alignment impact, will let you fill that in) Equipped gear does not drop Backpack and loot bag is full drop Resource availability enough to sustain long term and be viable at all levels, but excludes the a lot of the top end of resources/loot. "Red" Zones Middle map and all islands Full loot PVP as we know and love it today As mentioned, tweaks to incentive for loot/resources Other comments: @kilrain mentioned earlier about the zones and availability of TCS. I may be misinterpreting, but please do not exclude mainland holdings and areas from TCS if you go with a system like I described above. The mainland is amazing in design compared to the islands and should absolutely be included in TCS. A comment earlier about possibly upsetting new players who don't like PVP that they can't get the best gear without going into PVP zones. That's where the line needs to be drawn and they just need to play another game. There needs to be risk, and even non-pvp'ers can get the top end loot by other means (scouting and avoiding pvp, contracting help, bringing a zerg etc). Overall, I think a faster solution like this or similar ideas is best to take it slowly. Avoid overly complex points/% systems. 3 clear levels and just need to tweak the balance and mechanics that could be used to grief. Edit - Also obviously exceptions to the zones based on VCP live status, sieges, etc
In that other thread, we were discussing better ways to defend ourselves when we get jumped. The only thing we have is load-lag and this is not a feature. To turn all of this into a thread to figure ways to help blue players doesn't suits well with the current era of ROA. ROA has fast leveling speed so nobody has to waste time in newb area's. I have made a alt. In the same day, i have killed a rare golem for an hour and i never got jumped. A player like me is not going to spend time in newb area's to kill anyone. With a world so big, most of the area's in this game are safe. ... I don't really want to hear ubergames speech on population: i don't wanna hear that you are building a game for the future where you think you will have 10k players. I think the world is safe enough right now.
A player like YOU may not do that, but that's not the point. You know there are some real scumbags in this game, and all it takes is 1 to ruin the new player experience for people. We shouldn't be against changes that helps prevent that. Getting ganked when you grab that last goblin shortbow for your early quest is going to turn people off. Sure you can argue it introduces them to the danger of Darkfall, but they can get that experience soon after they get their bearings. I think the main discussion is around the settings between safe zones and full loot lawless pvp. The "yellow" area if you will. The world is safe enough BECAUSE of the low population though. You can't ignore population. It's an issue and the game won't be around if it doesn't improve, so BPG must design for the higher population scenario.
Assuming the newbie areas are selected carefully and designed properly, would that really be a problem to veterans? I mean why would a veteran player want to be in the same area as a newbie player in the first place if not to grief. I'm not playing so I have no say in this discussion, I'm just seeing a major flaw in reasoning here that seems to indicate a set and detrimental way of thinking or people being dick heads. From the outside it seems that if this is done properly you'll get more newbies, wont affect veterans and those newbies would in turn stay to become veterans and contribute to PvP. From the outside it seems like those people opposing it should re-consider if this would be good if it is properly implemented and then actually discuss the implementation instead of shooting down the concept.
I think that safe zone have to be free pvp with no full loot, so new people can test combat and training It.
There's no reason to be a scum-bags to newb's these day. First of all, you can't harass a newb with 24 hour protection. By the time it runs off, the newb should already have 75 on all 6 stats. They can't screw this up. They are really only at risk when the vets give them free stuff like FP bags or infernal bags so they are basically not losing anything from their personal earning. Tips must often be spammed in chat, not just on loading screen :''complete quests and earn pots to boost your stats to 75''. ''bank often''. ''transfer often''. ''unlock begone and impulse for more mobility''. ''to join a clan, open your clan tab, look for one, hit apply. Join a clan asap''. ... I understand they want to invite more pve oriented player. Ain't that too late? They all left because the grind was on high rate, not because the game was hardcore. DnD was more hardcore than ROA and it had more players. You got ppl on youtube saying that ROA is crap, DnD is good, but instead of listening to them, you all chose to claim that they just not built for DF. Making the world feel safer is not going to bring more players. PVE oriented players need more content, more reasons to farm in group or to farm as a zerg(which was possible to do in DnD). It has to be easy to group-up on all aspect with loots equally shared among party members. There has to be daily's and more random rewards like in most f2p games. I need a reason to not kill who-ever's occupying my spawn. I need a reason to work with him instead of telling him to find an other spawn because i will be occupying it for an hour. If you chose to protect your players more because they are blue, it means that you simply don't believe in your community. In DnD, it was just as useless to stay blue, but how many players were blue? A lot and we used to work together a lot. There's so many videos to prove that point. hell, we even had a pve scale event with no rules and no one there to kill each others.
it was later adopted as a feature, ya know kind of like battle spike hopping and hopping in general. Was not supposed to be that way but they decided it was good for the game and kept it. (did not fix)
tons of people like daily's. I have known many people that did/do the daily's we have now pretty regular.
You can say that, but from experience, i know that i can play an mmo with quests 8 hours a day. I started as a pve player. DF is my first pvp sandbox mmorpg. Well, shadowbane really is my first one from the store, but i never got past the starter area. I just play DF on PC now. Pve is never addictive in df, but more like a shore. I farm 1 hour per day or i don't play at all. When i don't play DF, i take it like a break which is an insult honestly. I'm actually glad that i have found DF because i don't feel like i have to spend so much time on my main game. A game like wow can easily ruin a life. I stopped playing football because of wow when i was young. I declined the offer when i was selected for being so good at the camp and i still regret it to this day.
You can not force a player to pvp .. You can force them to leave the game .. A player will engage in pvp because it is a function of the game they wish to partake in. There were many new players that i was able to teach the game to .. And many of them were very interested in experiencing the pvp offered by the game until they were hit by the huge brick in the face known as player skill learning curve. They quickly made the decision to stick it out but avoid pvp as much as possible while learning .. Or most just decided it really wasnt worth their time investment to learn to excell at the game .. And would leave .. So in closing the COMBAT SKILL AND MECHANICS OF DARKFALL ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT DECIDING FACTOR IF A PLAYER STAYS OR LEAVES .. You may love the combat .. I do as well but the more complex and higher skill ceiling this game becomes the smaller your player base will become .. Wolves eventualy become the sheep and peace out because their fragile egos cant handle it .. Be careful with what you guys change
You know what you need to do. Why are you even asking these people? You were warned a lot by many for a long time. You must have the metrics? What do you want here? Do you want an actual populated mmorpg, a living, breathing world with all types? Or do you want what you have left now? New Dawn was absolute shit imo and did so many things terribly, but some things it did right and it attracted at launch quite a lot of players and casual clans. Some still played to the end because it had things that RoA did not. I still to this day think you guys screwed the pooch by removing racial warfare instead of enforcing it. Punishing same race pk's instead of rewarding or even encouraging them. Race gives a player immersion and identity with his character. It allows for the RPG in the mmo. Players who still play this game now are not invested in their character at all, they only value the player behind it, his skill and ego. Give the races something to fight over in this war. Add Forts or Towers or even use the Cities and hamlets(honestly you should shuffle them around though it feel like almost no thought went into their placement imo) for the races to fight over. Give race wide benefits for holding certain objectives. Maybe add race wide objectives. Or race wide quests. Alfar may be able to get a win condition to get a dragon to attack sanguine for instance. There's a million possibilities. Entice people to join in the fight. Make cheap baseline gear that you can use for these areas that anyone can get to join in but also can get better gear through either A) looting it off the enemy or B) some type of pvp reward currency(silver) etc and have crafters be able to make racial battle weapons like faction weapons from uo. Give these weapons all kinds of cool effects or abilities but they can only be used in the "warzones" or whatever you call it. You could probably just do everything i'm suggesting with just the mainland so far making center map this area of forts or whatever. This would also keep population more dense. Make outpost banks between racial lands so that you can still raid into other racial lands, but remove teleporting in or out of lands you aren't allied to. Maybe you can add a way to teleport to these outposts if your race controls them. Crafters and gatherers would be a lot safer but not immune to danger. As they gather and craft items for the warfront they feel needed, useful, and a part of not just the game but the world itself. The outer islands you could do anything with at this point, add them to the "warzones" or make them super good pve farming but they are obviously more contested and you will have to fight for your loot. Or make them for the ARAC crowd so make them a separate faction within the factions in the game. kind of how chaos/order and factions worked in uo. These could have their own objectives and rewards and fight on the islands and naval warfare/sea towers. All this can also be easily done with a Tiered pvp system as a few have suggested. Keep areas immediately around the starter towns safe and it gets harder as you radiate out from there. Few things would need to be moved around, most materials and loot would need to be homogenized across the board so as to not make any racial area better than the others. If you do add certain things to certain areas it should be fair and balanced while still remaining a cool flavor. This could be something as simple as different colored rare(er) ore for different racial lands. Race alliances need to be 2-2-2 or every race for themselves. Pve'rs, Pvp'ers, Crafters need to have a symbiotic relationship. I honestly feel I am wasting my time here, none of the existing player base will agree with me and I doubt the devs will listen as I have stated these opinions on these forums many times. I have thought in depth on this for a long time and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I am old and tired though so this is all you get. I hope you at least read it.
Some good thoughts here! Sad that you are correct and people just want insta grat in a way they want.
not forcing a player to pvp when they knowingly and voluntarily sign up to play a PVP game. Jus saying, they consented the min. they downloaded the game.
I have been loyal to this awesome game and actually support ROA over DND because you stated when you launched that the core mechanics will be kept. it's great to add content. it's fine to make small changes. it's bad for the loyal customers to make big core changes (stat loss, no full loot). The idea of blue,yellow,red areas seems fine, vets dont go to starter areas anyway. blue zone: takes no damage (make it bigger maybe, since yellow shouldnt be so restrictive). yellow zone (smaller, not whole mainland): Make it a sandbox. Make scout tower that cast beacon on enemies. Make support towers that cast heal other. Guard towers that hits. Or even spawn mobs that helps the blue. Dont insta kill the reds and dont prevent it completely, just make it harder (a lot). You could even create a way to compete over control of "lord of agon" title that can place this towers or decided not to, charge taxes, etc as part of the TCS. red zone: as it is now.
