Fort PvP balance

Sorry, my mistake. I thought this topic was about this;

Felix wrote:I am wondering if you guys have any good ideas that will help stave off one side clearly outnumbering the other. I know that it will never be completely balanced team wise but anything we can do to aid in this area should be welcomed. Any ideas?

But now that I know it's actually about this;

Felix wrote:This was directly related to a few player switching sides. The effect is magnified in that when a player does this its subtracting the 40 they used to be playing on one side and adding a 40 on the other. Its not too bad now but I start to worry when I think of the possibility of more than just a few players doing this.

I'll offer a better idea/suggestion. It's something this server has been going without and should be implimented. Clearly explained and enforced PvP rules/guidelines.
Common sense type rules which some might think goes without saying might just actually need to be said. This is the internet and to expect people to have consideration over a video game is expecting a lot. But i digress...

Rules like.. No logging out during pvp, no re-using the same transition during pvp... and now.. No relogging to opposing faction during assaults/defenses, there could be plenty of other lame pvp tactics i could try to think of for this list of rules if you want.

As for the means of which it's kept tract of who breaks the rules and what the punishment should be.. is up to the staff to decide.. it could be broadcasted in some way in game in roleplay... a part of each fort having a wall of shame or dishonorable soldiers etc...
after all who would want to be in the same assault party with [insert soldier name here] when they have a reputation of vanishing during combat when allies are dropping dead?
Public in character humiliation might be the best discouragment from lame-pvp... only down fall would be the players who don't keep playing that character to avoid said concequence. But eventually after 30-50 different characters and account names they just might stop being lame!

but I'd suggest not publizing it the game mechanic punishments.. that way player's can't compare the pros and cons of the situation.
ex; "Oh.. banned for 1 day? I'm busy tomorrow anyways so I'll just close nwn before my hp drops to 0."
or...
" -### xp? pffft I'm lvl 40 with plenty of other characters to pvp with until i pg those lvls back I'm not letting this player get a kill off me."

(not really sure what goes on through the minds of those who lame-pvp but I bet it's mainly a sore-loser ego thing and in that moment the videogame becomes more than just a videogame.)

P.s. Some other rules like no assaulting while less than 2-3 enemies are online post-reset that way there won't be any more 1 defender vs 6-7 attackers unless... pvping against 1 player is what is prefered on this server.

TheeVals wrote:Sorry, my mistake. I thought this topic was about this;

Felix wrote:I am wondering if you guys have any good ideas that will help stave off one side clearly outnumbering the other. I know that it will never be completely balanced team wise but anything we can do to aid in this area should be welcomed. Any ideas?

But now that I know it's actually about this;

Felix wrote:This was directly related to a few player switching sides. The effect is magnified in that when a player does this its subtracting the 40 they used to be playing on one side and adding a 40 on the other. Its not too bad now but I start to worry when I think of the possibility of more than just a few players doing this.

Its about the former but the ladder is a large contributing factor.

Councillor positions and increased RP benefits, will, imo stop alot of the silly switching.

What about making it more difficult to attain both relics? That is to say maybe Cleaven goes to get Axfell's relic and succeeds, later a force of Axfell come to Cleaven and get into the reliquary but can only get back the Axfell relic. They would need to return later for Cleaven relic.

Currently there is no way to get back a neutral balance after a relic has been captured. It makes sense that there would be steps to getting the advantage and this will cause more assaults.

Honestly my favorite idea of this topic is other outposts. Imagine if Cleaven had an outpost ... say... south of Whispering Glade or something that contained some sort of bonus, perhaps a Cleaven Bank. Say Cleaven's are allowed to make deposits at this bank of at least 100k "interest free" rather than at Ranzington bank. But with that comes a higher risk. Should Axefell break in, they would be able to steal say... 10-20%% of whatever is in total persistently saved in the bank across ALL players. That may not sound like much but when you think about every player on Cleaven accessing it to store money it could be a pretty hefty sum. And if you think about it, if I put in 1 million gold of my PERSONAL gold, it doesn't hurt any more than 200k. But this outpost could be assaulted much like the standard gates for relics. You could even feign an assault at the outpost, and have a much larger force sitting in Grim's Pass waiting to charge at the main gates or vice versa. Even better, imagine TWO outposts so even more tactical moves and false assaults. So to improve your factions XP you assault the main gate... to get some money for your faction you can assault Outpost A... and to ... uh... I haven't much thought about another benefit... perhaps some higher end loot as a treasury? But you get that when you assault outpost A. That could wildly vary it, you could have each base be set up with guards that are strong/weak versus certain things, protected in different ways so it would require more diversity to assault all 3 or something... I dunno, maybe I'm just rambling.

Maybe some cleavens should join Axfell, so they feel superior due to outnumbering Cleaven again...Maybe it would prevent leaving.

It's easy...No pvp, half the fun.

Thought both sides were balanced in pvp...

First there were too many Axfells, now there's too many Cleavens...Balance is never achieved and one side becomes whinier and either players quit playing or switch sides...

I suppose you all know this and I'm stating the obvious.

There are more objectives than PvP!

Hopefully the not too far off PvE areas some devs are making will keep people busy!

I rushed through a very quick area myself, which should be in soonish - just to see how people respond to a few approaches that differ from the normal super-mazey, hack and slash, brain-dead grind!

Hopefully it will swing back around at some point anyhow

+1 to that...
It's not fun when it's too easy and it's not fun either when it's too hard (for whichever side..)

It was a massacre yesterday.

After today, few more corpses!

What time is the memorial service tonight??

Speaking of memorial service...Unless Prayer of the Overlord's been changed, it might be bugged since it worked only on 3 corpses at a time...

SeXy_SnipER wrote:Alright here is the problem I am having with this talk about balance .... Just 2 weeks ago Axfell had no problem dominating Cleaven in assaults so I don't think balance is the way to go, at least for the stand point of how many we have on each side.

Isendel wrote:I personally think that PvP is more balanced than it has ever been.

Wonder if people are ready to admit a possible problem.

Just pvp'd twice now this morning... groups; Myra, Dens, Nather, Rann Cora vs Desmond, Eowade, Shaco, Grimm Luther

(Techniquely for the most part it was 3 vs 4, because Rann isn't lvl 40 and died before getting behind the gate and remained dead.)

Second pvp consisted of....; Myra, Nather, Dens, Rann Cora, Colen, Varaxis vs Desmond, Gotrek, Rugnar

(So a 6 vs 3, same results yet 2 cliff causualties pre charging out and no one managing to run away.)

I've been told last night axfell attacked with 8, but not how many and who were defending. Either way seeing 3-4 corpses in the plains still was a bit surprizing.

I think there is am imbalance still, dispite the denial of some.. but it goes beyond just the numbers.
Right after the 2-3 defenses, returning to the barracks to rest as Myra.. and new player used a "bored" voice set.. and that more or less reflects possibly why there is such an imbalance. You've got 50/50 characters on either side.. only a certain number out of those 50 contribute to pvp.

I suggest pre 30-40 characters are ranzington and join either side when they are lvl 30-40... Yes it'll change the dynamics of the server drasticly... but it might fix the problem of having 3-4 pvping for those who are too low lvl to pvp or too afk and disinterested in pvping.
It would however also cause some interesting rp situations.

~skips over the most of the post~

You can't count Grim Luther in. This guy seems to have no idea that cleric can cast some ab buffs.
And when Desmond, Shaco and Eow fought you by "trees" he just transed and went to Ranz.
When we asked wtf, he answered he wasn't devoted to our attack enough after previous defeat in plains and called us flamers, because we apparently expected too much from a cleric if we wanted some healing spells.

And yes, definitely imbalance! Not just in numbers.
But at least there was some fighting involved!

^^ Glad you said it... because I didn't want to be the one to point out the obvious of some players being better at pvp than others...

Which adds to the imbalance if the competent pvp'ers are all on one side...

The corpses from last night are when a bunch of about 8 fells camped the plains only 3 40's though rest around 30 and a fully buffed cleaven contingent steam rolled us with 325 73 ab scythe crits it doesnt take long ;p I'm not a great pvper but i do enjoy it, axfell only seems to have about 4 pvpers though and most of cleaven seems to be very competant. And just now HB or ruin or something made me crash at full health and log in dead meh i hate nwn glitchy graphics

I suggest pre 30-40 characters are ranzington and join either side when they are lvl 30-40... Yes it'll change the dynamics of the server drasticly... but it might fix the problem of having 3-4 pvping for those who are too low lvl to pvp or too afk and disinterested in pvping.

Not that this will happen, but I'm curious as to why you think it will help.

Why would not being on a PvP faction, encourage people who wouldn't normally PvP - to PvP?

Why would not being on a PvP faction, encourage people to be less afk?


Every Anphillia ever has had a thread like this one. The simple fact of the matter is, unless we force people into playing Cleaven / Axfell and certain characters at certain times - using a nigh un-scriptable algorithm which calculates the probability of you playing on any given day, your effectiveness in PvP, your activity (E.G. when you're not afk), etc, etc, etc. There is nothing that can be done about the situation from the development end.

Balance as you have stated, is not attributed to one individual factor. It's a crazy whirlpool of different things and in a d20 game like this, it is largely about not out-right winning, but skewing the odds in your favour. Your level 40 can die to a goblin, if he was having a particularly unlucky day.

What is lacking, is involvement -after- PvP. Perhaps in your next assault, which you win super easily, you could spare a thought for those playing on the other side. Perhaps even make use of subdual mode and prisons!

There have been times on older versions of this module, where people would assault simply to settle an IC score. In fact, one of my fondest scenarios saw a very low-level group of characters collect up enough gold to get their leader out of the enemy's prisons.

People would relish PvP, even if they were totally going to lose. Their character was a hero. Others could help them, rescue them. Stuff they did mattered - not just their d20 roll.

TLDR

PvP Balance is subjective.
Nothing the dev team can do will help this at all.
PvP Balance is only an issue, when people aren't having fun.

Professor Plum wrote:

I suggest pre 30-40 characters are ranzington and join either side when they are lvl 30-40... Yes it'll change the dynamics of the server drasticly... but it might fix the problem of having 3-4 pvping for those who are too low lvl to pvp or too afk and disinterested in pvping.

Not that this will happen, but I'm curious as to why you think it will help.

Why would not being on a PvP faction, encourage people who wouldn't normally PvP - to PvP?

Why would not being on a PvP faction, encourage people to be less afk?

People will still afk, but their afking as a non axfell/ non cleaven might not directly affect a player playing axfell/cleaven.

Perhaps I am the only one who is bothered to see players do 0 pvp. I pvp because it's something I enjoy.
But if on the server we have players (and we most certainly do i bet.) who expect 1 player who is lvl 40 to always pvp and turn a blind eye towards that other player with a lvl 40 thats always playing a low level alt. It ruined the enjoyment of pvping... It no longer becomes a choice because people pin it on you as an obligation.

Also the non pvpers can stay at lvl 30 in Ranz rping merchants or pve for hire or something. -Not being wasted space

It would still not solve the problem of one side having more competent pvpers.

All i have left to say on the matter of depending on players to be considerate towards one another is Good Luck and don't hold your breath. I have suffocated before.

On the topic of competent PvPers, I love a challenge. If it were an option, I'd be on whatever side was losing, which at the time I joined, was Cleaven. Axefell currently seems to have a lot of lower levels climbing up slowly, so it should tilt again soon. And I can't wait until it does.

I vote a server wipe! >.>

...Somebody beat that man with a bat!

TheeVals wrote:
People will still afk, but their afking as a non axfell/ non cleaven might not directly affect a player playing axfell/cleaven.

Also the non pvpers can stay at lvl 30 in Ranz rping merchants or pve for hire or something. -Not being wasted space

It would still not solve the problem of one side having more competent pvpers.

How does someone being afk, directly affect a character playing Axfell / Cleaven?

Why are non-pvp'ers wasted space?

We're nearly there in proving it won't solve anything, nearly!

Rann wrote:On the topic of competent PvPers, I love a challenge. If it were an option, I'd be on whatever side was losing, which at the time I joined, was Cleaven. Axefell currently seems to have a lot of lower levels climbing up slowly, so it should tilt again soon. And I can't wait until it does.

Exactly!

Soon this thread will be people moaning on the other side, dependant on time zone.

IMO, the long and the short of it is, if you really only play for PvP - wouldn't you have more fun on BoW?

I finally mastered mithral crafting...Considering taking on jewelcrafting just for kicks since there's no jewelcrafter in Cleaven...
And somebody talks about a wipe!

Pvp is amazing aspect of this server. Would be great to see assault from one side (successful) + assault from the other side (to get the relic back) and again and again...

Don't think I've ever seen it around here yet.