Lineage 2 before GoD. You think how bad is to lose some shitty gear, now imagine to lose a castle. A castle you conquered because all the players in your guild had great gear, taken with crafting, PvP, PvE and trade with other players. A castle you won because you made right alliances with other guilds and because you chose right enemies and wars. So after massive battle with 1000-2000 players involved you conquered this castle. But after another such a battle you lost it. Your guild is crushed, your allies are leaving you, your enemies laugh on you. It took you year to conquer a castle, will you try again? Can you imagine such a game, where you choose the time, the goals, the tools, the friends and the enemies in strong competition and cooperation? Well, EVE is the same. And do not answer me with WoW player base, because you have no idea what it is about, when you are talking about marketing. Market is much more complicated than you think.
The problem is players' inability to see how much of the potential depth of such games is ecilpsed by the shallow power accumulation elements. You just need the right alliances of players who've spent long enough progressing to gain huge non-skill advantages over your rivals. Enough so that -- barring a serious screw-up -- you're going to win if you simply go through the motions correctly.
So yes, those games do have a category of non-skill decisions that other games don't replicate, but they're the shallowest sort of decision-making and nothing to be proud of. They're there to make PVP more casual and slower-paced for the type of player who can't make the other decisions (including where, when, and how to strike) fast enough.
Not sure what you're trying to say about marketing vs. the market. "Marketing" isn't at all related to what we're talking about. As for the market, well they've shown a clear preference for pure PVP rather than the diluted PVP offered by L2/EVE. (Pure meaning it's undiluted by non-skill factors.) Doesn't make much sense (because often people prefer the casual thing over the hardcore thing) but that's what they choose.
You call them "shallow power accumulation elements", other people call them politics. Its a whole new layer of depth in a game that doesnt have to do anything with pvp directly. And that advantage really depends on the skill ceiling of the games combat. In games where zerg gameplay is encouraged then there really isnt much the small group can do outnumbered. But ive seen games where 20-30 ppl have managed to win wars against 120-150 ppl alliances, either thru guerilla tactics or straight up pvp superiority.
The thing with experienced game depth in sandboxes is that it depends on you. Just want ez kills? Find lots of friends and outnumber everyone, but your individual skill wont improve much. Want a challenge? Fight against whatever comes your way alone or with a small group. Want to be a merchant and never pvp? You can do this, would you call his gameplay shallow and nothing to be proud of just because theres not enough pew pew?
Also how can you call sandbox pvp casual when its the hardest to jump into? Where you have to farm for your gear instead of choosing it in a menu? Sorry but jumping in and out of convienence first games isnt any hardcore, thats like the definition of casual and accessible, you have these terms mixed up.
But if you're trying to encourage MEANINGFUL combat, meaning you choose your battles carefully and combat is important when it happens and not the complete focus of the game, doesn't that need death penalties? Sure the ultimate end of not selling your goods are that you are not as rich as you could, but combat should be something more important right?? Why does every game need to have meaningless, constant combat??
What is the big deal of "choosing my battles"?
I chose my battles last time I played a greater rift on D3. I chose which level, and whom I play with. In fact, to a larger extend, when i choose to boot up a certain game, i chose the combat. You don't even need a sandbox for that.
And "meaningful" is in the eye of the beholder. As long as it is fun, is it "meaningful"? Or you have to write dissertations about it before it is "meaningful"?
D3 not only isn't a Sandbox, it's not an MMO. But as it is, I've seen the videos and that is exactly the sort of game play that many of us don't want. It's just constant bunching and nuking for hours. The fact that only a few can "win" it probably has a lot more to do with boredom than challenge.
Meaningful as in the greater world strategy around a worldly Sandbox game, as you seem to want to completely ignore.
Basically, you're just trolling again. You throw out this crap constantly any time a thread starts that's not your idea of gaming. Why don't you just let it go, go post in threads about what you like
and let people who want to discuss something different do that!Troll.
You call them "shallow power accumulation elements", other people call them politics. Its a whole new layer of depth in a game that doesnt have to do anything with pvp directly. And that advantage really depends on the skill ceiling of the games combat. In games where zerg gameplay is encouraged then there really isnt much the small group can do outnumbered. But ive seen games where 20-30 ppl have managed to win wars against 120-150 ppl alliances, either thru guerilla tactics or straight up pvp superiority.
The thing with experienced game depth in sandboxes is that it depends on you. Just want ez kills? Find lots of friends and outnumber everyone, but your individual skill wont improve much. Want a challenge? Fight against whatever comes your way alone or with a small group. Want to be a merchant and never pvp? You can do this, would you call his gameplay shallow and nothing to be proud of just because theres not enough pew pew?
Also how can you call sandbox pvp casual when its the hardest to jump into? Where you have to farm for your gear instead of choosing it in a menu? Sorry but jumping in and out of convienence first games isnt any hardcore, thats like the definition of casual and accessible, you have these terms mixed up.
They are shallow. Currently I'm playing one of those Travian/Game of War type strategy games and I'm in the #1 guild in the entire kingdom. This was achieved not through brilliant politics, but through very straightforward division of the players in the game into 2-3 large alliance power blocs, and ours happened to be the most protected and secure of those, which allowed our individual alliance to emerge on top (and in the process attract many of the high end players, further cementing our lead.)
A high skill ceiling helps, but it doesn't change the fact that non-skill factors hold significant power in that type of game. Mentioning the handful of times few-beat-many doesn't change that. Hopefully you're aware of how rare those situations are in the first place (having won my share of few-against-many fights in pure PVP games like Planetside I'm fairly familiar with the rare conditions that need to arise to make them happen.)
Sandbox PVP players do have a little ability to seek out deeper fights, but it's nowhere close to evening out the discrepancy. In a pure PVP game, progression and population are always balanced. The amount of time and effort and randomness you'd have to suffer through in a sandbox to find similar situations (similar opposing group size, similar progression/ships) is huge. The fact that you have to put all that time and effort just to have a low chance of deep gameplay -- compared with pure PVP games where it's consistently deep -- is why I say the experienced game dept is much lower in diluted PVP.
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
When a 5-man group is attacked by 20, they will flee if they can loose gear in fight /if not they will trolling around/, then they will search for allies or better skills and gear to outnumber or overforce their enemies. So 5 vs 20 leads to politics, crafting, farming, fight, competition and cooperation. While 5 vs 5 on arena leads to nothing. In the best case you will buy better gear. I'm curious what is this poorly made game you play.
Imagine that, a large cooperative effort being of importance in an MMORPG. THE SHAME!
Leadership, cooperation and politics are actually a huge part of MMOs based around a emulating a virtual society. It may not have a place in every game, but definitely in anything claiming to be a sandbox or virtual world.
When a 5-man group is attacked by 20, they will flee if they can loose gear in fight /if not they will trolling around/, then they will search for allies or better skills and gear to outnumber or overforce their enemies. So 5 vs 20 leads to politics, crafting, farming, fight, competition and cooperation. While 5 vs 5 on arena leads to nothing. In the best case you will buy better gear. I'm curious what is this poorly made game you play.
5vs5 in an arena immediately results in a good/great fight of tight, important decisions to be made.
You're falling back into the assumption that Chess can't be deep without an additional layer. But we already covered how the additional strategic layer in these games can quite often cause them to have shallower effective depth (100% chess vs. 50/50 chess/checkers), and in just my last post I gave an example of how that was the case (my #1 alliance being the result of easy, shallow power blocs forming, not as the result of clever political maneuvers; there is little skill to sending one message "hey, [guildName] is in the lead want to gang up and take them down?")
So Chess, like any well-made pure PVP game, is going to be deep enough on its own that it doesn't have to "lead" to something. It is something already.
Basically it's a matter of whether you want your game to just be deep all the time, or whether you want it to usually be shallow (but "leading" to depth, eventually. Maybe.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
But if you're trying to encourage MEANINGFUL combat, meaning you choose your battles carefully and combat is important when it happens and not the complete focus of the game, doesn't that need death penalties? Sure the ultimate end of not selling your goods are that you are not as rich as you could, but combat should be something more important right?? Why does every game need to have meaningless, constant combat??
What is the big deal of "choosing my battles"?
I chose my battles last time I played a greater rift on D3. I chose which level, and whom I play with. In fact, to a larger extend, when i choose to boot up a certain game, i chose the combat. You don't even need a sandbox for that.
And "meaningful" is in the eye of the beholder. As long as it is fun, is it "meaningful"? Or you have to write dissertations about it before it is "meaningful"?
D3 not only isn't a Sandbox, it's not an MMO. But as it is, I've seen the videos and that is exactly the sort of game play that many of us don't want. It's just constant bunching and nuking for hours. The fact that only a few can "win" it probably has a lot more to do with boredom than challenge.
You like it or not ... is not the point. I doubt you like every sandbox under the sun.
The point is that there are many ways to "choose my battle" and it is in almost all games. Making it sounds like it is special .. is just silly.
Leadership, cooperation and politics are actually a huge part of MMOs based around a emulating a virtual society. It may not have a place in every game, but definitely in anything claiming to be a sandbox or virtual world.
Says who. Planetside is a big virtual world battle ground, and most players will just go and shoot some people. Even if you build a virtual world, which most MMOs don't even bother these days, you cannot restrict how players play the game. If they just want to go into the world and shoot some stuff, that is their prerogative.
For me immersion is the most important aspect of a sandbox MMO. A game must have a right set of features instead of some particular single feature to achieve that. One step from which to start could be the complete removal of global chat.
5vs5 in an arena immediately results in a good/great fight of tight, important decisions to be made - that is MOBA. When the game evolve, the competition evolve, the cooperation evolve in time, when there is long term goals, that is a sandbox MMO. Chess was only an example for risk/reward concept. Now you use that example at very inappropriate way, because chess is 1vs1 game, while MMO is a massive multiplayer game. When your alliance is bigger, you are obviously better politic. But bigger is not always equal to better. That depends on the game. When you have FFA PvP, skill based combat, and good mechanics for cooperation, few people can overforce many. In fact I saw that even in L2, which is gear and level based game.
It seems like you think the metagame never changes in a MOBA. That the competition, game, and cooperation don't change. That just tells all of us that you've never played that sort of PVP at a high enough level.
My chess example is merely there to point out how adding layers to strategy can not only fail to make a game deeper, but can actually make a game completely shallow. The example holds true with any deep team game just as it held true with chess (a 1v1 game)
For example typical MOBAs offer great game depth, with a lot of important skills including laning tactics, ambushes, item choice, and reaction time. If you added a "politics layer" to MOBAs where you could bring in 20 allies, you would easily overpower your 5 opponents with a relatively shallow choice (ie bring more friends). The population advantage is such a powerful advantage that it actually renders the other skills far less important -- with basic tactics, basic ambushes, and basic item choices, your 20 players are still going to absolutely destroy your 5 opponents (even if they make the best possible choices.)
So don't get distracted. What I'm explaining isn't reliant on the chess example. I'm simply describing the fact that some layers of a game can trivialize others. Population imbalances are a common way games allow one layer to reduce the experienced depth.
Stop bringing up the few-beat-many scenario. That's less than 5% of battles. You can't just ignore the fact that the remaining 95% of battles are being made shallow as a result of this mechanic. Look at the big picture and realize that the game is typically quite shallow.
You can also look at it from the perspective of taking the 5 best players in a game. In Game A (5v5, population-controlled) they will always win, because only skill matters. In Game B (5 vs x, population imbalances can occur) they will frequently lose -- even if they consistently beat 5v10 fights, they cannot resist the unstoppable tidal force of popuation imbalance and will succumb to defeat if their number of opponents is too great. Clearly skill matters more in Game A, and more types of skill matter too (in Game B the most important "skill" is gathering more players.)
...which is why we can conclusively state that these sorts of games (including FFA PVP, World PVP, and all MMORPG PVP) are casual PVP.
I'm not suggesting those games should change -- they are what they are by definition -- I'm just accurately calling them shallow, casual PVP (because they are) and avoiding them personally.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
When a 5-man group is attacked by 20, they will flee if they can loose gear in fight /if not they will trolling around/, then they will search for allies or better skills and gear to outnumber or overforce their enemies. So 5 vs 20 leads to politics, crafting, farming, fight, competition and cooperation. While 5 vs 5 on arena leads to nothing. In the best case you will buy better gear. I'm curious what is this poorly made game you play.
Maybe in theory...
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
When a 5-man group is attacked by 20, they will flee if they can loose gear in fight /if not they will trolling around/, then they will search for allies or better skills and gear to outnumber or overforce their enemies. So 5 vs 20 leads to politics, crafting, farming, fight, competition and cooperation. While 5 vs 5 on arena leads to nothing. In the best case you will buy better gear. I'm curious what is this poorly made game you play.
Maybe in theory...
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
For me immersion is the most important aspect of a sandbox MMO. A game must have a right set of features instead of some particular single feature to achieve that. One step from which to start could be the complete removal of global chat.
I agree with that. Players will still use their own communication systems, but not having it in-game removes that immersion breaking feeling.
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
When a 5-man group is attacked by 20, they will flee if they can loose gear in fight /if not they will trolling around/, then they will search for allies or better skills and gear to outnumber or overforce their enemies. So 5 vs 20 leads to politics, crafting, farming, fight, competition and cooperation. While 5 vs 5 on arena leads to nothing. In the best case you will buy better gear. I'm curious what is this poorly made game you play.
Maybe in theory...
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
I like this. A lot.
I have a question about your factions system. Will one faction be able to build a city, and then attract other factions?
For example:
a large faction builds a city
They need miners and the economic peripherals (trades) around that so they invite a faction devoted mining and smithing who accepts and comes to this city
a faction devoted to a deity (priests) want to have a temple there for political reasons, growth so they come
a thieves guild or some form of secret faction wants to be there so they build a house as a secret den
5vs5 in an arena immediately results in a good/great fight of tight, important decisions to be made - that is MOBA. When the game evolve, the competition evolve, the cooperation evolve in time, when there is long term goals, that is a sandbox MMO. Chess was only an example for risk/reward concept. Now you use that example at very inappropriate way, because chess is 1vs1 game, while MMO is a massive multiplayer game. When your alliance is bigger, you are obviously better politic. But bigger is not always equal to better. That depends on the game. When you have FFA PvP, skill based combat, and good mechanics for cooperation, few people can overforce many. In fact I saw that even in L2, which is gear and level based game.
It seems like you think the metagame never changes in a MOBA. That the competition, game, and cooperation don't change. That just tells all of us that you've never played that sort of PVP at a high enough level.
My chess example is merely there to point out how adding layers to strategy can not only fail to make a game deeper, but can actually make a game completely shallow. The example holds true with any deep team game just as it held true with chess (a 1v1 game)
For example typical MOBAs offer great game depth, with a lot of important skills including laning tactics, ambushes, item choice, and reaction time. If you added a "politics layer" to MOBAs where you could bring in 20 allies, you would easily overpower your 5 opponents with a relatively shallow choice (ie bring more friends). The population advantage is such a powerful advantage that it actually renders the other skills far less important -- with basic tactics, basic ambushes, and basic item choices, your 20 players are still going to absolutely destroy your 5 opponents (even if they make the best possible choices.)
So don't get distracted. What I'm explaining isn't reliant on the chess example. I'm simply describing the fact that some layers of a game can trivialize others. Population imbalances are a common way games allow one layer to reduce the experienced depth.
Stop bringing up the few-beat-many scenario. That's less than 5% of battles. You can't just ignore the fact that the remaining 95% of battles are being made shallow as a result of this mechanic. Look at the big picture and realize that the game is typically quite shallow.
You can also look at it from the perspective of taking the 5 best players in a game. In Game A (5v5, population-controlled) they will always win, because only skill matters. In Game B (5 vs x, population imbalances can occur) they will frequently lose -- even if they consistently beat 5v10 fights, they cannot resist the unstoppable tidal force of popuation imbalance and will succumb to defeat if their number of opponents is too great. Clearly skill matters more in Game A, and more types of skill matter too (in Game B the most important "skill" is gathering more players.)
...which is why we can conclusively state that these sorts of games (including FFA PVP, World PVP, and all MMORPG PVP) are casual PVP.
I'm not suggesting those games should change -- they are what they are by definition -- I'm just accurately calling them shallow, casual PVP (because they are) and avoiding them personally.
Casual gameplay is defined by being convenient and easy to jump in and out. You are using this word wrongly since mobas fit this defintion exactly. In sandboxes you need to get ready for fights, by crafting or equiping your gear, eating food, etc. so its not something you can just jump into for 15 minutes and get a fight. You also can lose this in death so the game is hardcore, ever heard of Diablos famous game mode? Do you think it was named like that because you spawn right next to the mobs with all your stuff?. Im sure even Nariu will agree with this.
I dont know where your getting those numbers, this really depends on the player. If you roam around with 4-5 guild mates instead of 20 you will have higher chances of finding groups your size or bigger. So in sandboxes, the experienced depth depends on the player, its not spoon fed to you. Also your wrong in that no matter what 5 players do, they cannot beat 20 lesser skilled players. Like I said this really depends on the skill ceiling, do you really think the best 5 CS GO players couldnt beat 20 random noobs? Mobas pvp is exactly like mmorpg but in a "fair" enviorment, so the skill ceiling isnt very high on them, maybe its not possible with those. See what I mean?
Your also seeing everything from a pvp point of view, while this is only one of many layers in sandbox games. Your telling me anything thats not directly pvp is somehow "shallow" and "reducing game depth"? All those minecraft players, such shallow gamers building stuff 24/7!! Cant even pvp in those servers! so 0% effective game depth lol
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
I like this. A lot.
I have a question about your factions system. Will one faction be able to build a city, and then attract other factions?
For example:
a large faction builds a city
They need miners and the economic peripherals (trades) around that so they invite a faction devoted mining and smithing who accepts and comes to this city
a faction devoted to a deity (priests) want to have a temple there for political reasons, growth so they come
a thieves guild or some form of secret faction wants to be there so they build a house as a secret den
Can this sort of stuff happen?
We plan on that sort of interaction being possible. Factions can set rules in their territory, so they would need to allow the friendly faction access and mining rights in their territory, otherwise the other faction would be flagged as law-breakers when they try and enter or mine from the host faction's territory and suffer the penalty mandated by the laws of the first faction.
However, only one Faction can control a piece of territory, so the "host faction" would be setting the rules for the other faction's members to do business within their borders. A thieves guild could set up shop in a faction's borders, but they obviously run the risk of getting caught by their host faction's members or hired NPCs.
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
I like this. A lot.
I have a question about your factions system. Will one faction be able to build a city, and then attract other factions?
For example:
a large faction builds a city
They need miners and the economic peripherals (trades) around that so they invite a faction devoted mining and smithing who accepts and comes to this city
a faction devoted to a deity (priests) want to have a temple there for political reasons, growth so they come
a thieves guild or some form of secret faction wants to be there so they build a house as a secret den
Can this sort of stuff happen?
We plan on that sort of interaction being possible. Factions can set rules in their territory, so they would need to allow the friendly faction access and mining rights in their territory, otherwise the other faction would be flagged as law-breakers when they try and enter or mine from the host faction's territory and suffer the penalty mandated by the laws of the first faction.
However, only one Faction can control a piece of territory, so the "host faction" would be setting the rules for the other faction's members to do business within their borders. A thieves guild could set up shop in a faction's borders, but they obviously run the risk of getting caught by their host faction's members or hired NPCs.
That's fantastic. Just the way I always wanted it.
The politics that ensue are going to be interesting. The player driven content on the order of Eve and plus some, in my opinion.
And the best part, while all players can be affected by world affairs to some degree (which gives them at least a little reason to be interested in them), they don't HAVE to participate in them.
I guess you know better the plan than I can see it, is that correct?
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
I like this. A lot.
I have a question about your factions system. Will one faction be able to build a city, and then attract other factions?
For example:
a large faction builds a city
They need miners and the economic peripherals (trades) around that so they invite a faction devoted mining and smithing who accepts and comes to this city
a faction devoted to a deity (priests) want to have a temple there for political reasons, growth so they come
a thieves guild or some form of secret faction wants to be there so they build a house as a secret den
Can this sort of stuff happen?
We plan on that sort of interaction being possible. Factions can set rules in their territory, so they would need to allow the friendly faction access and mining rights in their territory, otherwise the other faction would be flagged as law-breakers when they try and enter or mine from the host faction's territory and suffer the penalty mandated by the laws of the first faction.
However, only one Faction can control a piece of territory, so the "host faction" would be setting the rules for the other faction's members to do business within their borders. A thieves guild could set up shop in a faction's borders, but they obviously run the risk of getting caught by their host faction's members or hired NPCs.
That's fantastic. Just the way I always wanted it.
The politics that ensue are going to be interesting. The player driven content on the order of Eve and plus some, in my opinion.
And the best part, while all players can be affected by world affairs to some degree (which gives them at least a little reason to be interested in them), they don't HAVE to participate in them.
I guess you know better the plan than I can see it, is that correct?
Players won't need to participate in politics directly of course, but even the lowely adventurer out for himself traveling and taking odd jobs as he finds them will be playing a part in the overall politics of the world. Possibly by taking the job to mine 100 stone for a player, he has allowed the player to finish a town wall just ahead of an invading force, thereby inadvertently altering the course of history and possibly determining the outcome of that invasion.
We think that by having EVERYTHING be player created and player controlled we can effectively make ALL decisions by players impactful. Hence why we consider our game to be the "Complete sandbox".
Please spare the personal flaming. You have no idea what I was playing. I'm talking about open world FFA PvP in sandbox MMOs. You are talking about chess, some imaginative percentages /do you have official statistics for the type of 5% or 95% of the battles?/ And then you make some general conclusions without any logic, based on the nonsense you wrote. How 1vs1 fight is not casual, but 5vs1 is casual? I won battles 1vs5. Seems you even cannot imagine it. In fact the most casual PvP is arena fight, because there is so many limitations to make the combat "fair". So you can use premade tactics or even to rely on your gear.
Of course I'll spare the personal flaming -- I haven't personally attacked you so far, why would I start now?
Why are you trying to pretend like fair battles are common in open world FFA PVP games? You and I and everyone who's played these games any length of time knows that the overwhelming majority of conflicts are one-sided. 1 in 20 battles (ie 5%) being a fair fight is probably far more generous than what actually happens in EVE.
Why is 5v1 casual? I just finished walking you through how one layer of a game's decisions can trump another layer. Should be self-evident at that point. You start with a game which is deep (rewarding many types of skill and achieving a very high skill cap) and then allow a single shallow decision to wield tremendous power. The amount of skill required to type "can help you me kill this guy?" is trivial, yet it doubles your team's health and damage to get just 1 teammate to join you! So it's casual. In the 1v1 you are either skilled or you lose. In the 5v1 skill is far more optional, and the game is far more casual.
I keep telling that few-against-many battles are irrelevant. What part of that explanation is unclear to you? Certainly I can imagine winning 1v5 fights; why would you think otherwise? What part of what I'm saying gives you any hint that I'm inexperienced at PVP? The fact that you could even entertain that thought creates a lot of doubt around your own experience at PVP -- clearly the way I've discussed the topic with you so far should impart upon you the sense of someone who is intimately familiar with how PVP works in a broad variety of genres.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
for me that "feature" would be ever-changing world, in all senses of that word.
terrain would be reshaped by players and events, mobs/npcs would have their own goal they would try to achieve "independently" of players, players (overall) would try to achieve goals that would give them (all of them) advantages, progress the world, unlock new things etc.
Comments
You call them "shallow power accumulation elements", other people call them politics. Its a whole new layer of depth in a game that doesnt have to do anything with pvp directly. And that advantage really depends on the skill ceiling of the games combat. In games where zerg gameplay is encouraged then there really isnt much the small group can do outnumbered. But ive seen games where 20-30 ppl have managed to win wars against 120-150 ppl alliances, either thru guerilla tactics or straight up pvp superiority.
The thing with experienced game depth in sandboxes is that it depends on you. Just want ez kills? Find lots of friends and outnumber everyone, but your individual skill wont improve much. Want a challenge? Fight against whatever comes your way alone or with a small group. Want to be a merchant and never pvp? You can do this, would you call his gameplay shallow and nothing to be proud of just because theres not enough pew pew?
Also how can you call sandbox pvp casual when its the hardest to jump into? Where you have to farm for your gear instead of choosing it in a menu? Sorry but jumping in and out of convienence first games isnt any hardcore, thats like the definition of casual and accessible, you have these terms mixed up.
D3 not only isn't a Sandbox, it's not an MMO. But as it is, I've seen the videos and that is exactly the sort of game play that many of us don't want. It's just constant bunching and nuking for hours. The fact that only a few can "win" it probably has a lot more to do with boredom than challenge.
Meaningful as in the greater world strategy around a worldly Sandbox game, as you seem to want to completely ignore.
Basically, you're just trolling again. You throw out this crap constantly any time a thread starts that's not your idea of gaming. Why don't you just let it go, go post in threads about what you like
and let people who want to discuss something different do that! Troll.
Once upon a time....
They are shallow. Currently I'm playing one of those Travian/Game of War type strategy games and I'm in the #1 guild in the entire kingdom. This was achieved not through brilliant politics, but through very straightforward division of the players in the game into 2-3 large alliance power blocs, and ours happened to be the most protected and secure of those, which allowed our individual alliance to emerge on top (and in the process attract many of the high end players, further cementing our lead.)
A high skill ceiling helps, but it doesn't change the fact that non-skill factors hold significant power in that type of game. Mentioning the handful of times few-beat-many doesn't change that. Hopefully you're aware of how rare those situations are in the first place (having won my share of few-against-many fights in pure PVP games like Planetside I'm fairly familiar with the rare conditions that need to arise to make them happen.)
Sandbox PVP players do have a little ability to seek out deeper fights, but it's nowhere close to evening out the discrepancy. In a pure PVP game, progression and population are always balanced. The amount of time and effort and randomness you'd have to suffer through in a sandbox to find similar situations (similar opposing group size, similar progression/ships) is huge. The fact that you have to put all that time and effort just to have a low chance of deep gameplay -- compared with pure PVP games where it's consistently deep -- is why I say the experienced game dept is much lower in diluted PVP.
Why is sandbox PVP casual? Because it's diluted PVP. Instead of being a pure contest of skill which is only won by skill, things like progression and population exist.
When a 5-man group is stomped by a higher-level 20-man group, nobody ever seriously said "wow those players are really skilled!" That's because it's fairly self-evident that those things don't require significant skill. Asking 20 friends to join you and playing the game longer than someone else aren't things you would consider skill. The former is a very shallow type of skill, and the latter just takes time (not skill.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Imagine that, a large cooperative effort being of importance in an MMORPG. THE SHAME!
Leadership, cooperation and politics are actually a huge part of MMOs based around a emulating a virtual society. It may not have a place in every game, but definitely in anything claiming to be a sandbox or virtual world.
5vs5 in an arena immediately results in a good/great fight of tight, important decisions to be made.
You're falling back into the assumption that Chess can't be deep without an additional layer. But we already covered how the additional strategic layer in these games can quite often cause them to have shallower effective depth (100% chess vs. 50/50 chess/checkers), and in just my last post I gave an example of how that was the case (my #1 alliance being the result of easy, shallow power blocs forming, not as the result of clever political maneuvers; there is little skill to sending one message "hey, [guildName] is in the lead want to gang up and take them down?")
So Chess, like any well-made pure PVP game, is going to be deep enough on its own that it doesn't have to "lead" to something. It is something already.
Basically it's a matter of whether you want your game to just be deep all the time, or whether you want it to usually be shallow (but "leading" to depth, eventually. Maybe.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You like it or not ... is not the point. I doubt you like every sandbox under the sun.
The point is that there are many ways to "choose my battle" and it is in almost all games. Making it sounds like it is special .. is just silly.
Says who. Planetside is a big virtual world battle ground, and most players will just go and shoot some people. Even if you build a virtual world, which most MMOs don't even bother these days, you cannot restrict how players play the game. If they just want to go into the world and shoot some stuff, that is their prerogative.
For me immersion is the most important aspect of a sandbox MMO. A game must have a right set of features instead of some particular single feature to achieve that. One step from which to start could be the complete removal of global chat.
* more info, screenshots and videos here
It seems like you think the metagame never changes in a MOBA. That the competition, game, and cooperation don't change. That just tells all of us that you've never played that sort of PVP at a high enough level.
My chess example is merely there to point out how adding layers to strategy can not only fail to make a game deeper, but can actually make a game completely shallow. The example holds true with any deep team game just as it held true with chess (a 1v1 game)
For example typical MOBAs offer great game depth, with a lot of important skills including laning tactics, ambushes, item choice, and reaction time. If you added a "politics layer" to MOBAs where you could bring in 20 allies, you would easily overpower your 5 opponents with a relatively shallow choice (ie bring more friends). The population advantage is such a powerful advantage that it actually renders the other skills far less important -- with basic tactics, basic ambushes, and basic item choices, your 20 players are still going to absolutely destroy your 5 opponents (even if they make the best possible choices.)
So don't get distracted. What I'm explaining isn't reliant on the chess example. I'm simply describing the fact that some layers of a game can trivialize others. Population imbalances are a common way games allow one layer to reduce the experienced depth.
Stop bringing up the few-beat-many scenario. That's less than 5% of battles. You can't just ignore the fact that the remaining 95% of battles are being made shallow as a result of this mechanic. Look at the big picture and realize that the game is typically quite shallow.
You can also look at it from the perspective of taking the 5 best players in a game. In Game A (5v5, population-controlled) they will always win, because only skill matters. In Game B (5 vs x, population imbalances can occur) they will frequently lose -- even if they consistently beat 5v10 fights, they cannot resist the unstoppable tidal force of popuation imbalance and will succumb to defeat if their number of opponents is too great. Clearly skill matters more in Game A, and more types of skill matter too (in Game B the most important "skill" is gathering more players.)
...which is why we can conclusively state that these sorts of games (including FFA PVP, World PVP, and all MMORPG PVP) are casual PVP.
I'm not suggesting those games should change -- they are what they are by definition -- I'm just accurately calling them shallow, casual PVP (because they are) and avoiding them personally.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
for it not to suck, like most sandbox games do.
Sandbox itself is a feature , most wanted feature in a "sandbox" MMO is the sandbox itself.
Anyway , sandbox mean ability to custom the sand in way player want
Though i'm sure most people here "understand" what sandbox mean .
completely agree unfortunately.
Founder and Lead developer of Factions. The complete fantasy sandbox survival MMO.
Factions indiedb Page (most up to date info) | Factions Website
Maybe in theory...
In practice most of the time the 5-man group will suck it up and wait till the 20 man group gets bored and moves on. Then they will go back to what they are doing and maybe gank a single player to feel better. They will not spend weeks gearing up and training just to get revenge on the 20-man group that most likely has long forgotten the incident.
There is also the fact that people tend to detest politics in skill-based competitions because it corrupts the "spirit of the game". Figure skating has a horrible rep because judges tend to vote 'politically'. The current FIFA scandal is due to politics interfering in how football leagues and championships are handled.
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
I think it's pretty well proven by EVE (an I"m sure other good sandbox games that I haven't played) that if you do the following things, you will have a successful political atmosphere:
1- In-game tools to administer the political situation (nations/factions/corporations with good admin tools, a map of controlled territory and resources, leaderboards etc...), so people know immediately what the situation is.
2- Real penalties for death, in EVE you can lose quite a lot of progress when you die, and insurance is not super cheap.
3- A truly player-run economy. EVE has possibly the best out there.
4- Real freedom for the players and many many choices.
5- Encouraging / necessitating teamwork by making a decent corporation nearly impossible to run without people specializing.
In Factions we are trying to emulate and improving upon much of this to create a meta-political atmosphere similar to what you would see in Civilization or Europa Universalis with the player involvement in politics you see in EVE.
Founder and Lead developer of Factions. The complete fantasy sandbox survival MMO.
Factions indiedb Page (most up to date info) | Factions Website
I agree with that. Players will still use their own communication systems, but not having it in-game removes that immersion breaking feeling.
Once upon a time....
I like this. A lot.
I have a question about your factions system. Will one faction be able to build a city, and then attract other factions?
Once upon a time....
Casual gameplay is defined by being convenient and easy to jump in and out. You are using this word wrongly since mobas fit this defintion exactly. In sandboxes you need to get ready for fights, by crafting or equiping your gear, eating food, etc. so its not something you can just jump into for 15 minutes and get a fight. You also can lose this in death so the game is hardcore, ever heard of Diablos famous game mode? Do you think it was named like that because you spawn right next to the mobs with all your stuff?. Im sure even Nariu will agree with this.
I dont know where your getting those numbers, this really depends on the player. If you roam around with 4-5 guild mates instead of 20 you will have higher chances of finding groups your size or bigger. So in sandboxes, the experienced depth depends on the player, its not spoon fed to you. Also your wrong in that no matter what 5 players do, they cannot beat 20 lesser skilled players. Like I said this really depends on the skill ceiling, do you really think the best 5 CS GO players couldnt beat 20 random noobs? Mobas pvp is exactly like mmorpg but in a "fair" enviorment, so the skill ceiling isnt very high on them, maybe its not possible with those. See what I mean?
Your also seeing everything from a pvp point of view, while this is only one of many layers in sandbox games. Your telling me anything thats not directly pvp is somehow "shallow" and "reducing game depth"? All those minecraft players, such shallow gamers building stuff 24/7!! Cant even pvp in those servers! so 0% effective game depth lol
We plan on that sort of interaction being possible. Factions can set rules in their territory, so they would need to allow the friendly faction access and mining rights in their territory, otherwise the other faction would be flagged as law-breakers when they try and enter or mine from the host faction's territory and suffer the penalty mandated by the laws of the first faction.
However, only one Faction can control a piece of territory, so the "host faction" would be setting the rules for the other faction's members to do business within their borders. A thieves guild could set up shop in a faction's borders, but they obviously run the risk of getting caught by their host faction's members or hired NPCs.
Founder and Lead developer of Factions. The complete fantasy sandbox survival MMO.
Factions indiedb Page (most up to date info) | Factions Website
That's fantastic. Just the way I always wanted it.
The politics that ensue are going to be interesting. The player driven content on the order of Eve and plus some, in my opinion.
And the best part, while all players can be affected by world affairs to some degree (which gives them at least a little reason to be interested in them), they don't HAVE to participate in them.
I guess you know better the plan than I can see it, is that correct?
Once upon a time....
Players won't need to participate in politics directly of course, but even the lowely adventurer out for himself traveling and taking odd jobs as he finds them will be playing a part in the overall politics of the world. Possibly by taking the job to mine 100 stone for a player, he has allowed the player to finish a town wall just ahead of an invading force, thereby inadvertently altering the course of history and possibly determining the outcome of that invasion.
We think that by having EVERYTHING be player created and player controlled we can effectively make ALL decisions by players impactful. Hence why we consider our game to be the "Complete sandbox".
Founder and Lead developer of Factions. The complete fantasy sandbox survival MMO.
Factions indiedb Page (most up to date info) | Factions Website
Of course I'll spare the personal flaming -- I haven't personally attacked you so far, why would I start now?
Why are you trying to pretend like fair battles are common in open world FFA PVP games? You and I and everyone who's played these games any length of time knows that the overwhelming majority of conflicts are one-sided. 1 in 20 battles (ie 5%) being a fair fight is probably far more generous than what actually happens in EVE.
Why is 5v1 casual? I just finished walking you through how one layer of a game's decisions can trump another layer. Should be self-evident at that point. You start with a game which is deep (rewarding many types of skill and achieving a very high skill cap) and then allow a single shallow decision to wield tremendous power. The amount of skill required to type "can help you me kill this guy?" is trivial, yet it doubles your team's health and damage to get just 1 teammate to join you! So it's casual. In the 1v1 you are either skilled or you lose. In the 5v1 skill is far more optional, and the game is far more casual.
I keep telling that few-against-many battles are irrelevant. What part of that explanation is unclear to you? Certainly I can imagine winning 1v5 fights; why would you think otherwise? What part of what I'm saying gives you any hint that I'm inexperienced at PVP? The fact that you could even entertain that thought creates a lot of doubt around your own experience at PVP -- clearly the way I've discussed the topic with you so far should impart upon you the sense of someone who is intimately familiar with how PVP works in a broad variety of genres.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
for me that "feature" would be ever-changing world, in all senses of that word.
terrain would be reshaped by players and events, mobs/npcs would have their own goal they would try to achieve "independently" of players, players (overall) would try to achieve goals that would give them (all of them) advantages, progress the world, unlock new things etc.