01/10/2016 - Feedback Request Return To One Server

[Xsyon]

I'm going to think how I can combine the ideas I proposed with ideas presented in this thread then start a new feedback thread on what's feasible with various options.

Thanks again for all the input!

[xyberviri]

I need more information on the rest of what's being proposed as it's currently not clear to me.

1) Things to fight over: What would this entail?

2) Full loot in Conquest zones vs random dropped item in Safe zones: This isn't clear to me. Would 'Safe' zones still allow for PvP and the only difference would be the limited looting? To me a random dropped item is about the same as no looting at all (but requires more work on my end).

3) Options for tribe to war each other in PvE areas: What would this entail? Tribes setting a switch? Tribes dropping safe zones? Tribes setting a specific war switch with another tribe.

4) Tribe take overs: What would this entail? Conquering tribe now controls the old tribe? Or just open looting for a period of time?

1) the higher gains that MrDDT talked about on things like scrap piles, Some things you wouldn't normally find such as human skulls should be "findable" in Conquest zones.

2) I still think you need a 3rd type of zone, Ie Medium Danger: Allow Evil and good players to kill each other in Medium zones while still protecting Neutrals, with High Danger being the conquest zones.

3) i think we just need an option for Friendly dueling, if we can say right click on some one and say "Purpose duel" similar to a quest and i can put an item in there that the other person can get if they defeat me. Perhaps the same at the tribe level, Ie let my tribe duel your tribe and when X are all dead then Y wins the pot.

4) This one is pretty hard to balance, but if you could duel another tribe for a totem area then maybe we can put the totem up as a "pink slip". Like when drag racers would bet their car and the winner takes the losers car. Something that you can opt into.

Next here is a system I was considering and designing in the past but never posted about.

Tribe controlled territories

- Tribes of 'x' size would be allowed potential control over an entire territory. To first control a territory they must have their tribe within the territory and then place 3 (or so) control totems within the territory.
- Control totems would claim a small plot of land.
- Every 'x' days (or using some other mechanism) control totems would become 'open' for a certain period of time (an hour for example).
- While open, players from another tribe can occupy the control totem area and take it over.
- Claiming a control totem would be occupation based (like several PvP objectives in Warcraft where having a player of a faction increases its value until a limit is reached and the objective is claimed).
- If the limit is not reached during the 'open' time, the current tribe retains control.
- Control of the territory would allow the tribe to set the entire territory to Safe or PvP
- Control of the territory would give the tribe and its allies resource bonuses.
- Optionally, control of the territory could prevent non tribe members and allies from gathering resources on the land.
- Tribes could gain control and advantages over other territories by capturing all control points.

Is there any interest in this type of system?

Yes Yes Yes, how ever i would purpose that you require blood as the upkeep. I mentioned in another post you need a 3rd zone type that allows evil/good people to kill each other outside of the mentioned conflict zones. If you required this "blood" to pay for upkeep it would allow the zones to go back into conflict so any one specific tribe wouldn't hold unlimited grasp on it.

This concept is very simple: if your good your clearly dont want evil players and if your evil you clearly intend hurt some one. This is our flag system right here, the only way to flag up or down is to join or leave a tribe.

Thanks for all you do Jordi, i know balance is difficult, all of these suggestions are just that and my own feel free to take them with a grain of salt.

[fuquashawn]

My issue with pvp is not dying. It's the grieving. Yesterday I spent the entire day working grass in a field. I did this why multitudes of people ran by waving and greeting me. This included several new players.
Last time I did this on the pvp server someone took the time to destroy every grass pile I had after killing me over and over three way over powered players on one guy with no weapon or armor. They didn't even bother to take the grass, they just destroyed it. The dieing is not the issue it's the grieving.
In my humble opinion PVP had it's chance, what was your words Xsyon? "The game population had also reached its lowest point." I say keep it like it is and let a dying dog die last one out turn out the lights. Honestly this question has already been answered by the player base, what was your words on that? "has followed this 80%/20% split."
I have trade partnerships, homesteads and tribes working towards common goals, new players rolling in by the day, communities growing. This game is headed in the right direction and the numbers show it.
Do I mind a duel switch? not at all, just adds to the game and we all know that's not pvp anyway. Do I want a tainted community running around grieving players? Not at all that didn't work the first time and won't work now, " The game population had also reached its lowest point."
If the cost of running two servers is too much simply choose the low pop server and close shop.

For the record I did meet real pvp players on my time in the pvp server unfortunately they were far and few.

[MrDDT]

My issue with pvp is not dying. It's the grieving. Yesterday I spent the entire day working grass in a field. I did this why multitudes of people ran by waving and greeting me. This included several new players.
Last time I did this on the pvp server someone took the time to destroy every grass pile I had after killing me over and over three way over powered players on one guy with no weapon or armor. They didn't even bother to take the grass, they just destroyed it. The dieing is not the issue it's the grieving.
In my humble opinion PVP had it's chance, what was your words Xsyon? "The game population had also reached its lowest point." I say keep it like it is and let a dying dog die last one out turn out the lights. Honestly this question has already been answered by the player base, what was your words on that? "has followed this 80%/20% split."
I have trade partnerships, homesteads and tribes working towards common goals, new players rolling in by the day, communities growing. This game is headed in the right direction and the numbers show it.
Do I mind a duel switch? not at all, just adds to the game and we all know that's not pvp anyway. Do I want a tainted community running around grieving players? Not at all that didn't work the first time and won't work now, " The game population had also reached its lowest point."
If the cost of running two servers is too much simply choose the low pop server and close shop.

For the record I did meet real pvp players on my time in the pvp server unfortunately they were far and few.

I fully agree let PVP server die, if Xsyon doesnt care about PVP and combat doesnt support it why worry about having 2 servers? Just let the PVP die without support updates or fixes.

Fuquashawn just note that PVP also had more people than PVE server ever has. 1000s of people played on that server with those rules. The same can not be said for the PVE server.

It sounds to me like you are a prime person that would be for a PVE server as you don't like PVP, which is fine. I agree with having areas made for people like you. I also think you would enjoy having some PVP here and there (like the dual option you are talking about) or zones where you can PVP if you want but not be "griefed" in your home zone.

[Pauven]

Personally, I'd love to play some PvP, but not with combat as it currently is. I'd like to stay PvE but maybe play some PvP from time to time.

However, I'm not a fan of the "toggle PvP" system at all. I think this would create too many problems. It would be a bit too easy to kill your neighbor and then run home to turn PvE.

The only way I'd give a positive vote for the return to one server is the following:

You said you're not willing to add PvP "zones" because of tribes that are already living in those areas. Is moving the mist back and turning those new zones into PvP areas be feasible? Perhaps make them high danger areas, giving PvE players the incentive to go there for scavenging and/or hunting (while not changing the current areas, meaning that PvE only players can still play as they currently do without ever having to go into the PvP areas).

I feel that this would fit into the game with the current idea of "the further away from the lake, the more dangerous the game gets".


In any case, my idea or another idea, I think there are many more important things that should be in the game (especially combat-wise) before PvP and PvE get merged back to one server. I also think it would be a bad thing for long-time PvP players to be forced to "start over", even just item-wise, but I realize it might be very difficult to avoid that.

[Wrath_Hobo]

As a new player hearing that everything ive built or helped to build will be wiped is very discouraging to continue to play. I like that youd be offering to save characters to continue to develop after a potential merger. It definantly allievates some reluctance to even start playing. I have played many survival games before and what it comes down to is the community. Everyone ive met so far is fairly friendly and their isnt much asshole griefing like I've seen in minecraft or Dayz. Maybe having something like I've seen in Warcraft where you flag yourself for pvp but once your flagged you cant unflag for another hour or so of gametime. Also allowing a tribe to form as a war tribe or Peace tribe would be sweet and allow both communities to coexist as then pve'rs can contract out and build stuff for the war tribes allowing more co-existance. If the people dont need enforcing at the time being however I'd say let it be. Another idea is if you are allied with a war tribe to help build upon their land it flags your tribe lands but not neccesarily your character for pvp for the time you form that alliance. Those are all farther on the road though as for the time being I feel almost zero danger on the PvE server and I can see it getting monotonous after awhile so hopefully some kind of temporary fix ie roving revanants or other dangers is implemented.

-Fwick the Peddler
Lost Boys

[xyberviri]

I think a lot of people skipped the other post about keeping the two servers not being an issue, we're not going back to one server. A lot of the arguments are being made as if the servers are going to be merged, Lets stop focusing on something that isn't going to occur, the Peace Server is safe and wont be getting blood spilled on it.

The true problem is no one, a part from a few players, want to actually play on the war server because of the small minority of players that have no sense of honor coupled with no one likes being restricted to just their homestead.



Ganking and Griefing is not pvp, I wish people would stop calling those two activities PvP because its not.



If War server had levels of pvp that increased risk with reward, IE death vs death + full loot, then that would allow players to choose how much involvement they want.


Those Danger level in all the Zones are the best solution:

Extreme
High
Medium
Low
None

None only exists on founders island, You have 4 levels of danger that increase as you get out away from the lake.
4 Levels of increasing Risk and potentially increasing reward.

We can just roll with that and boom, suddenly the pvp server has areas where combat can and can't occur.

Then you can't gank/grief people because they didn't go 5 zones north of founders island and just be done with it.

If the mist moves back then those zones that were high level danger would suddenly become low and those war tribes would need to move out towards the mist again.

(again this should all only occur on the War server, Peace should be the pve fun land of trade and what ever.)

[Xsyon]

Fuquashawn just note that PVP also had more people than PVE server ever has. 1000s of people played on that server with those rules. The same can not be said for the PVE server.

I've seen you write comments like this before and I think they are misleading to general readers. (It's not misleading to me because I have the actual data and a ton of feedback from those times).

Technically when the Prelude launched (March 2011) there were a few thousand 'active' players. All players that had pre-ordered Xsyon were considered 'active' since subscriptions had not started and there was a huge population boost in February and March of 2011 primarily from traffic coming from mmorpg.com where Xsyon was listed as one of the most anticipated games for those two months.

In reality, more than half of pre-order players quit playing before the final wipe. Many players simply don't play a game for more than 10 hours over the course of a month or two (which is how I've played nearly all MMOs I've played in the past). Many complained about rowdy players and tribes that had arrived in February and March and quit. Several large tribes that had enjoyed pre-order times (even with all the wipes) moved on to other games.

Many players wanted to see two servers at launch and I was on the fence about it until the very last minute. Looking back, not having both War and Peace servers at launch was one of my biggest mistakes. I can't change the past now though!

Roughly 2000 pre-order players logged in during the launch month after the final wipe. That month was very chaotic. The biggest complaints were about performance issues (loading and lag) and griefing. The game was barely playable with more than 50 players online.

Once subscriptions kicked in two months later the active population was down to around 500 players. At that point the focus of development was on combat. I had brought in one coder specifically to work on the new combat system and another to work on networking code to improve performance (desynch in particular).

Outside of that brief period (February and March of 2011) traffic to the Xsyon website (and now the Steam page) has been very low. The numbers in terms of conversion rates, hours played per player and player retention have increased over the years, especially after the launch of the Peace server.

With the recent removal of subscriptions, Xsyon has been more active than at any time since April 2011. The forums and global chat are a lot quieter than back then but players are spending more time in game and actively building and trading than ever before.

So technically, yes, for a very short period of two months about 2000 players played on the one server with current War Server rules. Most of those players checked in for several hours or less. It was just a small but very aggressive and vocal community that dominated the game and the forums. It was a chaotic unhappy two months and certainly not a period I would like to revive in Xsyon ever again.

Having said all this, as I've stated many times before, I enjoy PvP and I'm all for making improvements to bring the War Server to life. I will post my proposal for feedback shortly.

[Xsyon]

Yes, to be clear again: I'm not considering merging the servers to one server at this time. I've received enough negative feedback on that suggestion already.

[znaiika]

Thank you very much Xsyon again and again.
I am just waiting for those lock options with subscription, so I could have a goal/purpose.
You can set $10 and $15 these should also include the first $5 option of an active tribe.
$15 should include ability to lock all skills and attributes.
I think that should be fair for subscribers vs non subscribers.

@ddt Fuquashawn never said pvp zone, you added your self, he said pvp option wich could be turned on and off, I think your proposal to mod pvp server was a bluff.