Shard Activity

Every free server I've played. I'm assuming you're against this move? Not sure why, because aside from pking there is practically zero pvp activity. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having automated pvp events for the pvpers. Sure, some people will only log on for said events, but that's better than the non existent activity there currently is. Unless you consider 500 clients most of which are afk simply for platinum rewards as "activity," then whatever. Every server I've played with events often lead to outside fighting once the events conclude.

I'm not really convinced it has much to do with server activity - but I didn't play those previous servers you guys did I suppose. Either way it's stuff Telamon is rolling out. The PvP climate is odd here. It's tired almost. There's 3 organized groups and none of them want to risk a loss. There's so much blue scouting involved that spontaneous fights rarely happen.

The server easily has the best mechanics and economy of any server out there. But I do think there's something kind of toxic about the pvp community. It would be very difficult for someone to break into unless they sought out and joined a zerg.

Some of the pvpers that don't think there are fights out there just don't realize that noone wants to fight their big group. And I'm well aware that many people view SL this way.

I just don't think it's really fair to say this is in some way staff's fault for not designing/implementing the right systems. The pvp system is here, and its just as good as it was on OSI during the era, better actually, and there are things like the duel arenas too. I think the truth is a lot of the fault belongs to the veteran pvpers themselves. I can think of a group that recently claimed they were leaving because there wasn't enough action. Well they aggressively recruited every player that would join and easily put over 10 oranges on every night and bragged about having 25 people in their voice server every night. No shit there wasn't anyone for them to fight.

There is not really any group of pvpers that has a selective core here and ever fights at a disadvantage. They all recruit aggressively, attempt to poach each others members, and only log in when they have their top guns on and have an advantage on everyone else.

Two thumbs up.

I'm not active in PVP yet (although I JUST finished my first PVPer today...) so I'm technically not qualified to speak but I've definitely seen huge numbers (on ALL sides) recall/gate in on a 1v1 or 2v2.

I can't help but think that if you guys split up to fight eachother; it'd do WONDERS for the shard.

You guys can still be friends; it is a game after all.

PS. If there are any noobs looking to get out in the field PVP wise; let me know... I'm looking for people to roll with and would rather show someone the ropes than "PWN FACE" with a vet. I can help with stocking.

I just joined TB today (Because I actively sought out the weakest/smallest faction)

None of the guildies are coming back (sadface).

When I said I was in TB he knew that was the truth.

Well I had to confirm my suspicions some how...

Personally, PvP for me in any game, needs an objective. Factions has one but no one cares unless they've got a runic to use, in which case the enemy is scarce for three weeks after that, oddly enough. Incentives for that town control to really matter might drive up the action there but anyone can go read the last 10+ years of OSI forums to see that Factions was under constant debate for balance and improvement. That's a huge tell right there that we've got no small task trying to make Factions work really well all around without screwing anyone over.

The tournaments and games like CTF, Domination, etc, are the best for good sportsmanship. Outside of arranged duels, finding a balanced fight in the field is always going to be a dice roll and usually wind up craps. You're right, no one likes to get stomped out and that's the only option here with factions if you don't wait for 3+ friends to field with you. Having great fights with people in controlled environments allows for a good time to be had, even if you're losing. No one's going to talk shit because you left when your resources were low, instead of just dying, because you can't. 1v1/2v2+ tourneys are going to get that 5x itch out and perhaps some other formats will help us all really find comfort in the mechanics here by watching how others play and playing with or against them.

TLDR: Events will make PvP better.

I can see some people making a point to show up to automated tournaments. And there are more that will tune in often to watch them, so I definitely think it's a good thing. I'm just not convinced it's a real factor in shard activity. A lot of telamon's plans are solid though, I think. People will work towards the new achievements he's working on. People will work towards carp/fletch/tinker bods. People will be there for events like halloween/thanksgiving/christmas.

Thisx100000... including automated events.

I'm not against it. I just like to see proof or clear evidence when someone claims something has been proven time and time again. Otherwise let the incredible, non-data supported claims run wild!

.

The sky is blue. most people who are alive at some point have taken a breath under a blue sky. Therefore, if we have more blue skies, we will have more alive people.

That being said I think the truth of the automated events is that they allow the staff to maximize their time. I think we all accept that we play at crazy odd hours, and we can't expect a free shard admin to be awake and at the keyboard every loving second. Therefore I wholly support voluntelling telamon to do this! I think it has clear benefits so long as it can't be exploited to gain crazy gold.

What if there was an optional automated event where you could lose armor/gear? If you lose it on the field it decays super fast. If your team wins, you could get x plat. Game would require at least 10 competitors that are not from same guild and would only occur once a week at peek hours. Also, teams would have to be completely randomized

Why have it decay? My suggestion would be to have a 1v1 tournament in which if you die, you leave as a ghost. Victor has, say, 2 minutes before they're pulled out of the event ring before the next round. So they can loot what they like and move on. Certainly they are limited by the ~400 stone limit, so some stuff will get lost.

That way people have both incentive and disincentive to wear high-level gear, etc. And if you choose to use GM, but you beat someone with Invulnerability and Vanquishing, you may be able to use their stuff in the next rounds.

Good call Dalavar Callmage

My thought was more along the lines of a group event and I wouldn't want it to become overpowered. With one vet team always dominating and thus causing people to naturally exclude themselves.

In a group CTF or even King of the Hill type automated event (no holds bar) you could loot fallen comrades during the event, or try to get back to your things, but just know that items will decay really fast, so you have to loot fast without having much 'leisure' time to sift through the corpse.

The automated Arena's that already exist should have a 'No Hold's Bar' setting wherein, the winner gets to remain for 30-40 seconds to sift through the corpse for trophies. Anything the victor doesn't take remains fallen. This would not only be a good way to provide the element of risk back into the controlled Arena's, but it would also help spur the economy because we all know there is tons of unused equipment out there, and it will only get worse if the majority of PvP encounters = No chance of losing items

Jupiter, are you referring to the dueling arenas? If so, then I don't see a no holds bar as a valid proposal. There's no point. People use dueling arenas to test their skill in a given skill frame without worry of outside interference. You can add the option for your proposal, but my guess is that no one will ever choose to use it. The purpose of the arena is to remove the outside risk solely to determine skill value of each participating player.


Pork - I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the new event systems turn out.

Mes - I agree, I don't think adding the events will necessarily suddenly boost activity, but I do think it's good to give the pvp community some fun events that, from my experience, have eventually encouraged increased pvp activity. I think what's being added is a nice, balanced system that we can base an assessment of over time in regards to pros/cons of the upcoming implementation.

One can not just wish something better, one must make it better.

If you nurture something you want to grow, it will grow.

This has gone a tad off topic but I'll jump in anyways.

I like to log in for organized events - be they community ones or automated ones. They draw people together and I like to play with other people.

Let's definitely get some automated events up in here but not overdo it till they're no longer special. At the same time, let's organize some events of our own if we want to fight each other so bad.

I think in the end, the benefit largely comes from the increase in activity of current players. Right now, with Vlar's summoner sprints and Jupiter's adventures and Gideon's hype train at the top of our forums, this shard looks way more attractive than it did just a short while ago. As a matter of fact, we might want to get even more of that on the front page of the actual site. These sort of things convince curious gamers to give it a try and make people like me get excited about logging in. I was getting bored with feeding my dragons an endless supply of elder gazers and started to drift away from the game for a bit there.

Quick shout out to Ervin and PvP University! Any lurkers out there who want to fight but are too n00b can come fight with us. We've had a couple dueling sessions going in the past week and we're currently organizing a group vs group brawl. This stuff isn't as hard to learn as I thought it'd be and everybody in the group so far is friendly.

RIP Grimoire

Looking forward to Knight's Forge!!

For those who are interested in leading events, but might feel overwhelmed just follow the Keep It Simple Stupid strategy. If you're worried about security/rabble rousers just make your event less complicated.

The roof of the Adventure Time guild hall is always open for duelling/sparring/events. If anyone wants to host there, let me know and I can friend you for security.

+1 for auto events