"Lord of the Rings" character. You need to watch the films to really understand why I gave that nickname for you, and why 6 arms (hint: using a bow and arrow requires two arms). DBC: Sadly, I can see your story becoming a very real scenario in the near future if Freyr doesn't move quickly to fix this. Eventually, it might get to a point where this forum becomes a meta-regulating community: people here espouse the value of teamwork and pulling your weight, and dissidenters to those values may end up being named and shamed. I'm not too fond of such a thing happening, but if it plays out how you said it, I think that may have to happen if the SW crowd on TA continues to grow. On the flipside, Freyr has already recognised that we've got some hardcore players here, and an active community. That implies that our general opinion should have quite a bit of influence, because we currently represent one of the largest/most active SW forum on the net. In other words, if most of us believe that there are issues with the game, we should collectively voice it to Freyr, because they have already acknowledged the significance of this community.
Yeah realized he was a bow and arrow dude and DBC isnt wrong about the future... So I retired to PvP which I probably won't regret for a while until the coop gets fixed.
Solutions for the bonus for "not doing anything" in a team match? What you wrote so far about the update does not sound encouraging. Especially the posts from Capricornman and Drummerboycroy sound extremely frustrated and annoyed. And I fully agree: Having others who contributed nothing collect rewards for your effort sounds plain wrong. Now, my question is: Aside from reverting things to the former "boss reward based on how many people enter the fight, not how many survived", *how* would you like to see it done? The simpler the solution the better. We had a short similar discussion already, and all ideas including mine were quite complicated. The best thing I can come up with is: - Only give out a very small base reward for "just being there" - Make the additional bigger gold reward based on 1) number of kills for the alien wave phase 2) amount of damage done to boss during boss phase - Give an additional bonus if all players who entered the fight survived. Say, 25% for 2 of 2 players, 50% for 3 of 3 players. - Give no Mithril to players who have either 1) 0 bonus for alien wave phase, or 2) did no damage to the boss during that phase This should hopefully - reward teamplay more - make it less rewarding for lower level players to get helped through a bossfight that is out of their league. Currently doing so gives them a huge push in available resources. I realise perfectly well that this is something many people like to do, and I did it myself, both on SW and on other games I played. However, in the long run this actually tends to negatively influence game balance, when people can get equipment that is way above their normal means. We could still take weaker players along to the fights, only their payout would be (much) less than what it is now. Let me give you a practical example: In a MUD I played many many years ago, high level players tended to drop off weapons and armor they did not need in a "community dump" , where other players could go and pick them up free of charge. This was not a problem while the number of highlevel players was small, both in absolute numbers and as percentage of the total playerbase. Over time, the playerbase grew, and so did the number of highlevel players. Naturally, at some point you had highlevels drop off large amounts of highlevel equipment in the dump, making things way out of their league available to lower level players. This caused a huge problem for game balance, and resulted in alot of additional work for the MUD programmers/developers, e.g. implementing level limits for a vast amount of equipment, tuning equipment and monster stats, add limits to the community dump, etc. Also, as a rarely mentioned side effect, new players got jaded extremely quickly. Example: "Why does quest X only give out a crappy level 10 sword? I picked up a much better level 20 sword from the dump just yesterday." Yes, this practice destroyed part of enjoyment of the game for a good amount of the playerbase. Why I know all this? Because I was one of the highlevel players, and made exactly this mistake. When I started playing there, I was extremely happy when I stumbled into a higher level player that handed me a weapon and armor that were somewhat better than the equipment I started out with. Fast forward to a few years later, and you had new players literally complaining why the other player gave them only a "crappy newbie knife +1" when he could give them "uberslayer sword +5" as well. This explanation got quite a bit longer than I intended, but here you go
We need a serious discussion here. Given the general reactions towards some aspects of the latest update, I think it's worthwhile that we come to a consensus on what we consider to be our most desired areas of attention in this game. We've got a community of players here, so coming to a consensus on issues we feel that should be considered will better represent collective preferences rather than a single player's isolated thoughts. I've edited this post to ensure that I'm giving due respect to Freyr, who developed this game for us to play and experience in the first place. However, I think it is valid to express my frustration regarding unsavoury players in the following paragraphs, so I'm leaving them untouched for the most part where I feel I am not risking disrespect toward's the developer's efforts: ---------------------------------- Sabotaging: I'm referring to the freeloading in co-op boss runs, where people will choose to do nothing in favour of conserving their ammo costs. I think I speak for most of us when I say that we're quite fed up with having to carry obviously experienced players through a boss at our own expense, including risking death to do so because we're more vulnerable when we're actually shooting. Additionally, we're tired of freeloaders being rewarded at all. By all means, if they're going to do nothing, they should get nothing: no gold, no mithril. Based on what happened in prior versions of the game, I'm anticipating the the latest update will cause people to leave BEFORE the boss fight, once they've received all the gold they want from the enemy rush. This is going to infuriate players who wanted to engage the boss in a team of 3, and there's currently no way of discouraging this behaviour once a player's gold bonus for a boss has reached its minimum for the day. Put simply, I believe the TA community of SW would benefit from mechanisms simultaneously encouraging teamplay and discouraging selfishness.
I went back and dug this post up, because quite frankly it really moved me when I read it, and I didn't have anything worthwhile to say about it at the time, in light of the gravity contained within it. So much of what you wrote hit me so squarely, I don't know if I can adequately distill my concurrences into something that would fit in a TA post. I guess this will have to suffice... I don't even know if I belong here, trying to enjoy this game. The online MP PVP FPS "noob" mentality makes me sick, a bunch of children, both in age and mental/emotional capacity engaging in what amounts to bullying, until the bullied gain weapons, armor, ability, and ultimately, power, thus becoming the next wave of bullies themselves. Just read any forum that talks about PVP, you will eventually hear talk of "owning noobs" and all this other BS. Oh wow, so you, with a year's worth of experience and gear upgrades, are better than a kid who's played for 15 minutes and doesn't have a fair chance? Wow, you really are impressive, aren't you? When I found BTHD, I had intentionally never played anything "online," with others. What I found in the BTHD community shocked and humbled me, and it still does. Seeing my name in the leaderboards alongside people who trained me is a special kind of personal triumph. When I came to SW the third time (and I know this is embarrassing for him), a player named undead.exe started PMing me, asking if I would be interested in running with him. The rest is history. When Capricornman and WCFields expressed interest in advancing as players, I was so excited to be involved with those runs, I could barely contain myself. Going back to the "noob" mentality I was trying to avoid? Read the posts in this thread. 95% of the posters here sound like they're 30+ years old, and I know for a fact that many of them are much, much younger than that, including one recent poster who indicated their age as 11eek. Each and every one of these posters should be proud of who they are, and the maturity they show, especially inside an online MP world seemingly profligate with "pwnage," "n00bs," and BS of that ilk... I guess what I'm saying is this. I just wish the cooperative piece of SW wasn't so d@mned mercenary, but perhaps it's just that I'm trying to wish it into something it just isn't. DBC
I'd very much have to agree that fast-tracking new players like that can very well break the gaming experience. I've run into quite a few Perseus Armour users who die quite easily, despite having arguably the sturdiest armour set in the entire game. The reasoning is actually quite simple: they didn't bother to learn how to dodge with lower armour-sets, and instead opted to increase the amount of punishment they can take rather than improve on their skills. Anyone who's looked at the statistics will realise that the Thunder Armour has identical speed and power to the Perseus set when its ability isn't activated - the difference is that its much lower HP forces you to learn how to dodge, or simply die in one or two hits at higher levels. Regarding the players I've seen fast-tracked here, I'm proud to say that their skills have actually developed quite nicely, because they were disciplined in their skill growth. Telling a certain player to pick up the Cutter resulted in him figuring out the speed and range of enemy attacks, meaning that despite his accelerated income, he actually had the skills to use his equipment to their fullest potential. I'm a little in two-minds about the idea of players getting good weaponry too soon in this game -- because from what we've found, the majority of weapons in the store are incredibly ineffective for combat. ------------- Regarding the allocation of mithril, I'm inclined to go one step further and say that we need two components that affect the chance of getting mithril. The first one should be similar to the system Freyr already has in place, where chances of receiving mithril drop for every time you receive some from a boss. The second one, I'd argue that you should tie it to either how much damage you do to the boss, or how much ammo you've expended. If it's tied to how much damage you do to the boss, then mithril drops will function in a way that prevents new players from being rewarded too steeply when they're in matches they shouldn't be in: they can't do much damage to the boss, so they're unlikely to get the higher mithril payoffs from tougher bosses. In contrast, basing mithril drop chance on ammo expended will ensure that players are encouraged to try to shoot the boss, even if their weapons don't do that much damage. In BOTH cases, freeloading is discouraged, because you can't get any mithril if you don't do any work.
Hi Drummerboycroy Yep! Yep! Your descriptions of this game should be used by Freyr to market and sell their game preferably on another planet where frustration is the common good!!! I don't feel any desire to play this game!!! Like grab a flag is going to keep my interest Sounds like a lose lose situation Time to pick up our lunch boxes and head on out of here!!! See you around Take it easy
Sadly, if this continues, there's going to come a point where there's only one flag I'll be interested in waving: the white flag. Having to watch a community form around a game and then gradually disperse is actually more disheartening than never having a community to begin with for me.
Not sure if you caught my response to Sheinfell a page back, but perhaps we want something Freyr just doesn't? DBC
Sorry undead.exe to make you feel sad I'm just venting I'll keep the game on my device in the hopes of a meaningful update but at the present I can't see it Thanks for your interest in this game I've learned a lot from you and Drummerboycroy! And that's what I'll miss
Ahh, don't worry mate, it's not your fault It's just a disappointment when a game is created so well that it can draw a crowd, but isn't quite reaching the standards necessary to sustain it. And on that note... Yup, I read your post, and it was just a sad wake-up call. My massive block of text earlier should be a clear indication of how much I want to save this game's community, but the fact is that Freyr never made the game intending for a community like this to form around it. It's a very real possibility that the game's fundamental design can never perfectly support a community of cooperative players around it. Ahh well. We've already got to know one another on here, so we could always discuss and recommend games to each other if SW doesn't work out Although, let's save such a discussion like that for a thread on the player's group, before we start turning the SW thread into a discussion about another game again >.>
This is exactly what I was thinking about on my drive home, DBC. I came to the conclusion that we should come up with a consensus among us, just like undead.exe stated. And then - very respectfully, it is their game after all - ask Freyr to have a look at it, and ideally comment on it. Such comment should - again ideally - contain a statement/vision of theirs on how they perceive the teamplay aspect of their game. if that occurs, it is up to each of us to decide if they like the answer or not, and if they want to continue playing. One more thing to consider, although we said this before a few times: While we are very active and vocal, we are a very small part of their playerbase, and thus completely negligible for them in terms of revenue. If they even listen to our concerns, it would be an immense courtesy on their part. Please always keep this mind.
You've got a real point there. My post sounded quite overkill on the idea of influence, to the point that it sounds more like coercion than anything. I should take some greater care in ensuring my tone sounds respectful, especially considering that Freyr allowed us the privilege of playing this game for either a very low cost or no initial payment depending on when you joined.
You were talking about people who kill noyhing and deal no damage to the boss get nothing, but what about people with WBs? They could kill aliens and throw a wave at the boss to deal damage so that wouldn't totally get rid of freeloaders.
