Unused feature #1: Combat rankings

Ssaliss

This is perhaps not unused, but certainly misused. Unfortunately, due to me not being a fighter, I can't really give much input, since the only thing I could think of was random matchups. That's not likely to work though, given the current population of Lusternia.

So I'm throwing this wide open, and odds are I won't make many more posts here.

Alban

http://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/648/pvp-currency

Add that, and make combat rankings based around winning queued FFA's/Wargames instead of duels.

Also should probably make them reset a little less often. I think they reset too frequently for the population of the game, so it's easy to just wait for a reset then climb really fast for the honors line. Maybe reset every 2 months instead of 1.

Ssaliss

Let's keep the PvP currency and the combat rankings separate. If they are linked somehow, so be it (I wouldn't mind either way), but for now assume that the two will be separate systems.

I like the idea of large arena games deciding your combat ranking though. It wouldn't solve every problem, but it would certainly be far better than what we have today.

Kio

That's only going to encourage stacking wargames teams. It's not hard to do right now, and I know many people won't play unless they can get on an even team or have a chance at playing with a top-tier combatant.

Alban

Well, the title of the post is "unused" features, and a great way to get someone to use something (especially in a game) is to gamify it.

Raikogen

Maybe make combat rankings linked to free-for-alls only then?

Shuyin

Unique curios and/or ikons are always the answer.

Alban

I'm not savvy enough on the mathematics behind Elo systems to say how it works exactly, but other competitive leagues have a concept of placement matches. So, if you were to be a skilled combatant, your elo would end up being quite high after the first 5 - 10 games, and you would basically stop gaining elo by beating lower ranked people and would have to play against other high ranked people to gain ranks.

After the placement matches you lose/gain less elo per match.

In a good ranking system you would have to play and beat people close to your own rank to move up. 

Also, aren't queued wargames random?

Elanorwen

If memory serves, the original combat rankings system worked fine back in the Achaea days. That said, I have not yet heard anyone really care much about it in the first place. You won't see a sudden influx of people joining/using the combat rankings just because it is suddenly fixed. There are one too many limitations on the situation as duels happen, even more so when if I'm lower ranking, my score would go up in a draw. I can just abuse the whole thing by running around the arena for the next 5-10 minutes if I see I can't win against a higher ranked combatant. Then it all goes downhill from there.

Lerad

Aetolia has a duel system that I think we can steal ideas from.

Firstly: anonymity. The aetolia system anonymizes all participants - when the duel starts, you and your opponent are assigned to be either 'red' or 'blue', and that's all you see throughout the fight. You will never know who your opponent was, unless you publicly ask for someone to own up to it (after the fight) and you can never be sure if anyone who responds is the real person. Aetolia's arena system also drops you back to whichever room you entered realm-wide events from. Ie. if I join a FFA from the Master Ravenwood, after it ends, I'll be put right back there instead of at the spectator stands. This was put in to prevent people from escaping combat via arena events, but had the added benefit of helping maintain anonymity.

We can easily integrate that into our current queue system. Add a new event type "Rankings", and when one person joins the queue for that, it gives an alert to all participants of the system that "a challenger has appeared". The next person to join the queue kick-starts the event, and you get an anonymized duel. Whether we do the drop-off thing is optional, it really doesn't matter if you know who your opponent was after the fight is over, anyway.

Secondly: Number of legitimate duels The number one reason why rankings is abused is because there aren't enough participants to keep a healthy flow of points in the rankings. A single person can farm his friends' combat ranking points, and anyone else who wants to stop them has to resort to the same tactic, or they'll never be able to do so. This will be alleviated by integrating combat rankings into the queue system, as much more people will make use of it - out of sight, out of mind, is one of the many reasons rankings don't go used. If usage is as simple as joining a queue, an established practice in Lusternia already, we will see a large jump in legitimate combatants who would wish to remain anonymous, and thus create a healthy transfer of points that can prevent a single person from farming it easily.

All that said, I want to weigh in on PvP currency. I avoided the currency thread, even though I read it, because I found it was a bad idea at best. There is little reason to award arena fights with anything other than non-combat buffs. Even H/M/E buffs fall into this category. While those people who know the quests (or have a candy box) can easily get a H/M/E buff on their own, they are nowhere as wide-spread as it is made out to be. By making arena wins give such buffs, you literally make them available to EVERYONE, because all you need to do is to find a buddy, go to an arena, and have both participants heartstop in 2 different duels to give both their buffs.

No.

Anything that has any inkling of effect on PK is bad for PvP currency. H/M/E, truefavours etc. Anything that costs credits or quest effort to achieve is bad for PvP currency. Extra crits, quest mobs etc. The only acceptable PvP currency that should be tied to arena duels is fluff and non essential RP rewards. Entry/exit lines. Ql descriptions. Anything else is bad.

PvP currency for non arena PK is even worse. We do not need more reasons to engage in mindless PK. There is enough reward in actually winning a fight as it is: the winning of the fight. Lusternia is a ROLEPLAYING game as well as a PK game. Sure, the PK is the main, but at the very least, the winners right now have the bragging rights to say "Celest kicked Glomdoring's ass". This is the reward that comes with winning a PK fight, be it domoths, quest shenanigans, wildnodes, shrine fights or whatever. To add currency that is their own end will dilute winning for your nation or faction as a reward. And no, we don't want that.

Ssaliss

I'm not sure creating a separate arena game for rankings is the best way to go, since it'd be easy for, say, Leolamins and Akyaevin to both enter the queue at the same time in order to ensure a match between them. I can definitely see anonymity being added to things like FFAs or wargames though; would be a nice touch.

Alban

I feel like everyone missed the main point of the PvP currency thing (and also didn't read far enough to see it would JUST be for arena queues, not open world PvP). The point was a reward system - I listed a bunch of rewards, going for breadth over depth, just to get ideas flowing. I didn't expect people to see that list and think I meant everything there should be in the final implementation and then reject the entire idea based on that. 

I for one agree with you - purely cosmetic things are the way to go, although, to be fair, I did NOT say you'd get extra crits or buffs just for winning an arena game. It would be something you saved up for if it was in there. 

I agree with everything else you said about queues and anonymity. I haven't played Aetolia in many years, didn't realize they did that.

Ssaliss

Hmm. Might have a neat solution that might work... Let's combine various ideas!

First of all, ranking would only be gained in FFA/Wargames (or similar; might be others I've forgotten about) held in the Klangratch Tournies. No points from duels.

Second, all those would be subjected to anonymisation a'la Vengeance. Could perhaps even reuse the names from there.

Third, you'd only gain points from one kill per person per RL day a'la ikon battles. So you couldn't farm it to rack up a lot of points.

Fourth, you'd only gain points if your opponent is higher than you or within 10 points of you. No points are lost if you lose, although it might prevent you from getting a point from that person during that day.

Fifth, it'd be a nice avenue to incorporate Albans original PvP currency idea; every point you get for the combat ranking also gives you one "honor" or whatever; while the combat ranking is reset every month, honor is only lost when making purchases.

Thoughts?

Rivius

Perhaps more worthwhile rewards (curios, ikons, small number of bound credits) can be given to top places to encourage people to participate more.

We then just need to figure out a way to stop people from farming their buddies or avoiding sparring others.

Neos

One issue with the anonymity thing for Lusternia is the fact that the way that skills, weapons, etc are, it'd be easy to recognize your opponent. If you know there's only 1 Aquamancer who does combat and you face an Aquamancer, easy recognition. Or if you're facing a warrior/monk with a custom weapon, or the only combatant of skillset/guild T. In Aetolia, the only variation in combat is usually what strategies and curing systems are being utilized. 

Elanorwen

Anonymity in PvP? Okay, name five Blacktalon that fight. Or, three Hartstone for that matter. Or, three Aquamancers... notice a problem there? I'm willing to bet most people that already do fight will be guessing who was who in the arena events in seconds. The difference with the vengeance game is that you don't get to see the skills said people use. You only get to interact with them in speech. There are people who have distinctive speech patterns that are quite obvious even then, but to the less attentive, it is anonymity. In PvP that is gone, as the moment you know which guild someone is from and their fighting style, you know who they are. Move even further and include mage illusions in the whole thing and you can probably tell without having to even try.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The fact still stands that the rankings system isn't of much use with the amount of people that would be interested in it. I'd personally rather see it gone. Is there actually even a point to it beyond bragging rights for being ranked first? That said, if you're going to tie such a system to Wargames/FFAs, you might as well just go ahead and have a lottery with combat ranking points. The fact stands that there is such a thing as a weak team in Wargames and that the possibility of teaming exists in FFAs. Right now, nobody does it, because next time around they're the ones that will get teamed. Hide them behind a random name a-la vengeance and they will be doing it left and right. Add stuff like ikon/curio rewards to it and it will be happening without anonymous names too.

Alban

If I had to guess, the people who would care most about the anonymity are the newbies just starting out, so it wouldn't be super obvious who they are. I think it's still a good idea and better to have it than not.

Elanorwen

Uhhhh... why would the newbies care about anonymity? Worst case scenario, a more experienced member of their guild notices them in the FFA/Wargames and offers to help them with combat. I have yet to run into a situation where someone shouted/yelled/whatever at a newbie for fighting in an event like that or trying to learn.

Ssaliss

Hmm. Perhaps only anonymity while the event is setting up, to prevent people from trying to game teams/only join events without big names? Then when the game happens, everyone turns back to normal?

Alban

They would care about anonymity because it would allow them to make stupid mistakes without anyone knowing it was them. Not for fear of getting yelled at, but just because it would relieve some pressure to perform well.

But there are other reasons for anonymity being a good thing, and I don't think the use case of a guild having 1 active combatant is enough to discredit the entire idea.

Xenthos

Who has ever had unrealistic expectations of a newbie and believed that they should perform well?

I mean, just the term "newbie" (all by itself) implies that they know next to nothing and will flail around a bit. They are better off not-anonymous because then people are less likely to just faceplant them instantly (or, if they do, be more likely to offer advice after).

Elanorwen

Xenthos said:

Who has ever had unrealistic expectations of a newbie and believed that they should perform well? I mean, just the term "newbie" (all by itself) implies that they know next to nothing and will flail around a bit. They are better off not-anonymous because then people are less likely to just faceplant them instantly (or, if they do, be more likely to offer advice after).

I guess what a lot of people forget is that Lusternia is a much, much smaller (and definitely nicer) community than say... WoW.

In World of Warcraft, you get someone flopping around, you don't know who they are, where they came from and whether they've been playing for all of a week or since the game opened. In Lusternia, more often than not, you have a general idea of how long a time someone's been around. You don't go calling people retarded or noobs just because they're new. Normally, I'll yell at someone if I've had to explain something more than twice, but that's just the way I am. I kind of tend to overestimate people's intelligence and get frustrated when they show that they are lacking and need things explained in the simplest way possible several times. I guess the biggest problem stems from the fact that I also expect them to be paying attention when they ask a question, rather than be daydreaming and then completely forgetting what I tried to explain.

Anyway, I kind of got carried away here. What I pretty much wanted to say was... it's more likely that someone that is known to be new will be given advice than getting bitched at for doing something the wrong way. In that kind of situation being anonymous will not do anything good for them. I'd recommend getting rid of the misconception that you can learn everything about combat in Lusternia simply through practice or trial and error. I've heard it said. I find it amusing. It is possible, but it is much faster and easier to learn if you have someone sit down and spend a couple of minutes explaining stuff than if you just try and randomly flail in an attempt to accomplish something useful.

There are many afflictions that are not self-explanatory. There are many affliction interactions that also aren't self-explanatory. Things you wouldn't be aware of by just reading skill explanations. Things you might figure out if you grab someone and start testing stuff on them... or just ask someone more experienced. It still takes communication from both sides of the fight.

Xenthos

That is a good point you have raised there. Lusternia is not World of Warcraft. I kind of prefer it that way, personally. Something that works for thousands of players who don't really have any long-term interactions with each other (outside of a guild) probably won't work quite as well in a more close-knit community, especially one where personal interactions are so essential to continued long-term involvement.

Ssaliss

So we've pretty much settled on no anonymity during fights (and with good arguments to boot). My main concern is that people will go "Oh, Xena is in that FFA, so I won't join because I don't want to give her more points"; is that a largely unfounded concern, do you think, or should we keep anonymity until the event starts?

Kio

I'm not gonna avoid Xena because I don't want to give her more points.  I'm going to avoid Xena because I know I have a terrible time with Tahtetso monks and no matter how many times I get my butt handed to me, I still don't know where the danger starts.

(That said, I've just been really lazy about it and haven't grabbed someone by the ear, led them to my manse, and explain to me how they work outside of OMG I HAVE THAT HEART CHEST FLUTTER AFFLICTION AND I'M GOING TO DIE UNLESS SHADOWDANCE DRINK PROCS RIGHT NOW.)

Rivius

Xenthos said:

Who has ever had unrealistic expectations of a newbie and believed that they should perform well? I mean, just the term "newbie" (all by itself) implies that they know next to nothing and will flail around a bit. They are better off not-anonymous because then people are less likely to just faceplant them instantly (or, if they do, be more likely to offer advice after).

Or farm them for points! Which is sadly the reality.

Ssaliss

Rivius said:

Xenthos said:

Who has ever had unrealistic expectations of a newbie and believed that they should perform well? I mean, just the term "newbie" (all by itself) implies that they know next to nothing and will flail around a bit. They are better off not-anonymous because then people are less likely to just faceplant them instantly (or, if they do, be more likely to offer advice after).

Or farm them for points! Which is sadly the reality.

That's why I included the "only gains points from those that have more than ten points less than you do". Sure, they'd be able to farm 10 newbies, but then the funtrain stops.

Silvanus

Go back to how it once was, in that it never resets and people jostled for the top position.

Just add in a daily/monthly point deterioration that prevents someone from never sparring once they get the top spot.

Sakr

There should be two groups of benefits, with a distinction between the two.

City benefits, such as additional power to the nexus per weave. And Personal Benefits, like being able to use a stole of the Avenger if you're first place. Or being granted an additional emote, or having a special tabard. Kept the top position for 10 years in a row? You get a permanent statue on the way to the Arena, starting from the door of the Arena out. Get another 10 years? You don't get another statue, but you get a more pretty one.

City: Power. Added privileges or options when hosting a wargame?

Personal: Emote, stole, tabard, statue... special note in the newsletter?  Reduction in cost to duel? Added privileges or options when hosting a wargame?

Privileges might be: Be able to clear the arena, prematurely end it. Be able to add mobs to practice influencing for mock revolts. Hosting a wargame adds an additional message such as: This game has been brought to you by Magnagora. (Additional fluff message here). Add in dummies that you can fight and test out your abilities with? There is a lot that can be done with that,

Synkarin

Anonymity could be good for the initial combat rankings joining. Signing up to join means you wouldn't know who'd you get matched up against, so it would encouraged people to fight against people they normally wouldn't. 

It also may encourage them not to participate at all.

Enyalida

Not resetting is the best idea so far, I think. The easiest changes would be to make the combat rankings last longer than a month, and to introduce a penalty for not sparring anyone - especially if you're in first place.