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+--- Thread: PoBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) (/showthread.php?tid=145978)
PoBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Xenon - 12-04-2016
Greetings everybody,
I would like to discuss with you a very important subject.
First of all, i would like to apologize in advance for any grammar, spelling or poor English errors.
My first language is not English, so forgive me for any mistakes, and i can always try to elaborate more.
This is my last attempt to express some heavy errors happening regarding POBs, Factions and Game mechanics because it's affecting me negatively now
1- Factions Balancing
Let's face it, we have a great problem there. The players that are members of several factions opposite to each others in the same space are causing a mess. I am not talking about all the players that are members of 2 opposite factions in the same space, but i am talking about many of them. The problem is that it's close to impossible not to share information from a character to another when both are operating in the same space and in the same time are opposite to each others in RP.
For example, Lawful and Unlawful. The problems happening are several. The first one, is that the players that plays lawful and unlawful in the same space have the choice to log any of the 2 characters depending on the situation and how it will serve their ooRP agenda sometimes, so let me give you a small example about that. Player (i) is a member of lawful faction (A) and unlawful faction (B) and both factions operates at the same space, So when faction (A) goes against faction (B) in the same space, then the player (i) will have the choice to login any of his/her 2 characters, and here comes the problem. The reasons behind logging the first character or the second character sometimes is outside of role play, and it's kinda impossible to prove it sometimes. This problem allows some groups to target some other groups by abusing the option of being in faction (A) and faction (B) which operates at the same space and opposite to each others at the same time.
I understand some voices that says "If we implement a rule that force player (i) not to be a member in 2 opposite factions operating at the same space will kill game activity and make interactions hard" I understand your point but i disagree with it. Actually the damage that is happening and can happen from abusing this option is greater than the advantages of keeping this option without a rule to shape it in a balanced way. The abuse of that option is causing lots of problems, like "Shadow Logging" which is the fastest way to kill someone's fun intentionally and force him/her leaving the game.
I am sure that the purpose of this server is gaming and since we are here to game, then we don't need to drive others off the server while we are doing our fun. We need to evaluate what we are doing and make sure that we are not stepping on other people's fun.
2- POBs Balancing
We have another great problem here in player owned bases. The problems are several and can be classified into two groups. The first group is the "POB Bugs" so for example, defense arrays on POBs have great bug which can be summed as follows. If POB (A) is under siege by a group of players, then if those players started shooting the defense arrays several times, then the defenses arrays will stop shooting back specially after they are destroyed for 3 to 5 times and respawn. Some players do siege on bases and knows exactly about this error and abuse it so it makes the defenses of the bases are useless. We need a fast fix for this problem because it drops the motivation for players who build bases.
The second problem concerning POBs is that there is no balance regarding the construction and the destruction of those bases. I will give an example. If player (i) wants to build a lawful or unlawful POB, then that player will need to do some role play with the factions controlling the space which he/she intends to construct the base at. The player also needs to have a great amount of cash in-order to be able to pay for license and taxes and purchasing the materials required for building the POB and the list of materials is HUGE.
Then the player needs to follow the rules of POBs which state that he/she needs to ask for core blue print and provide reasons and RP links and fill a form and wait for months to achieve those blue prints. If i can sum it up fast, then a Core 4 base needs about 5 months of hard work and never-ending RP in order to reach that level. The problem is that, this base that requires all that time and efforts and money can be destroyed in 20 minutes or maximum 1 and half hours because the POB shields are letting in 3% of the firepower which is too much. Also the hit points of the bases are too low compared to the attacking fleets firepower and the time, effort and money spent for building the base. There is no balance between the construction and the destruction at all and it drops the motivation for players who wants to resume their work with POBs and those who wants to start new POBs on the server.
This problem also is heavily connected to the Faction balance that i already explained on point (1). We need a fix for that as soon as possible because some players already got heavily affected by that imbalance and when someone's efforts is wasted like that, then they loose motivation to try their POBs plans on the server anymore which actually by time will kill the idea of POBs completely.
There is also another problem with the rules of declaring a siege and that problem is about the 2 weeks time of attack. The problem is that there is no balance about that time limit since the siege can be done over and over again with almost the same players or same ships for 2 weeks which makes no sense at all in RP - Also players that get killed by defense arrays, return back to battle just like that, because there is no rules enough to manage that problem yet. We need a fix please.
Thank you for reading these thoughts of mine, and i hope that we can discuss it for once, in a civil manner.
Have a good day and merry xmas to ya all in advance.
regards,
@Xenon
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Engel - 12-04-2016
Does it lead to anything productive? Looks like you just want changes that eventually will make POBs unkillable. Your analitics is biased as hell and I can see from where it comes from.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - ger3mita - 12-04-2016
About PoB balancing, instead of getting destroyed, PoBs can get core downgrade.
I mean if core 1 or 2, if it die, it die.
But core 3 or above, that need RP to build, when it die, it will respawn as downgraded core after next server restart. Core 5 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2.
And then RP is needed to upgrade again.
Of course attack declaration will end after destruction. And the base will have a time-frame that cannot be attacked.
This has some benefits:
- No feature needs to be add to current PoBs modules.
- Less hard feeling for PoB owners, but still reach RP cause of attackers.
- Prevent PoBs owners stop RPing after reach core 4 or 5.
Cons:
- Admins get more tasks...
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Croft - 12-04-2016
I'd suggest changing the basic PoB siege mechanics to a torpedo ammo system rather than capital guns. By scaling the amount/cost of ammo needed to the level of the base being attacked (say 40 to 70% of the PoB's level cost) it'd ensure that conducting sieges would need similar effort as to actually building the targetted base whilst also adding a sensible credit-sink. This would allow every faction to potentially attack a base and add financial weight to any planned siege, so even if information is passed between factions, the cost would always need to be considered.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Sombs - 12-04-2016
(12-04-2016, 08:45 PM)Croft Wrote: I'd suggest changing the basic PoB siege mechanics to a torpedo ammo system rather than capital guns. By scaling the amount/cost of ammo needed to the level of the base being attacked (say 40 to 70% of the PoB's level cost) it'd ensure that conducting sieges would need similar effort as to actually building the targetted base whilst also adding a sensible credit-sink. This would allow every faction to potentially attack a base and add financial weight to any planned siege, so even if information is passed between factions, the cost would always need to be considered.
+1
But is that possible to code? That would mean the PoB needs to be invulnerable to any other weapon fire, doesn't it? How do the torpedos react to the shield?
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Wesker - 12-04-2016
Personally like base sieges the way they are now. It's not easy to motivate people to do a base siege unless you're me the numbers required and the coordination leads to large fights. It's also VERY time consuming for most sieges. 3% might not sound like a lot. But I was shooting 2 bases for 3 hours last night with 5 other valors if I remember right. It takes a long time, it requires lots of coordination and motivation. Making it harder would put pobs at 0 risk for being destroyed which makes no sense to me inrp or oorp.
However croft's idea is interesting, I guess I wouldn't mind if it was changed to the way he presented either.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Croft - 12-04-2016
I can't take full credit for the idea, its essentially how EVE handles base sieges with slight adaption.
The real beauty of the ammo system is that each torp could theorically do massive damage to bases, provided it impacts of course, which in itself opens up a few tactical decisions: Do the bombers fire at a relatively safe range or do they go in close to ensure impact? Do the defenders priorities shooting down the torps or the bombers?
Depending on how much damage is done per hit and the ability of the defence, sieges could go from 3 hour slugfests to 30 minutes of frenzied shooting.
As for the technical side of things, I have absolutely no clue.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Laura C. - 12-04-2016
Well, my two cents:
Maybe it´s time to finally start talking seriously about removing POBs until the concept will be completely reworked. Time proved that POBs brought same amount (if not more) harm than good to the mod in the current form. It´s flawed on way too many levels and it brings the worst from the community, causing its reduction in the end.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Sombs - 12-04-2016
What feature of the game hasn't been abused yet? To be fair, PoBs have also given much RP opportunities, be it trading, taxing or sieging. There is always a second side of the coin. People don't stop living while knowing death is inevitable.
RE: POBs | Factions - Balance & Motivation (open discussion) - Ihtyander - 12-04-2016
Good topic. Ill summarize my sugestion
There should be 2 types of POBS.
1. POBS of offical factions - every faction can have more POBS but one is HQ. this POB is undestructible. IF anyone lay a siege and `win` that base should bi disabled for a period of time, or losing side should pay winning side some big reparation to get base back. (more or less)
2. Other Pobs from indies, freelancer,individuals liable for destruction as it is now.
So waging siege can be usefull, but not to extent to cripple work which lasted month to build a damned thing.