Campground Raiding 2.0

[keybounce]

Alright, I think I'm done with raids.

Here's what I see as the final, fatal flaw:

Once you get your campground damaged, your power is lower, and you are easier to damage more. While I was trying to get some of the items I lost re-purchased, and installed, I lost more.

Basically, trying to turn raiding on (placing improvements) while you don't have a full set of improvements for your level just means that you are weaker than the other people who are at that level. It wasn't so bad while I was just raiding back and forth with one person, but now I'm in a two-front war, and losing -- losing items faster than I can replace them (getting hit by two people).

===

Fundamentally, raiding has the function of destroying certain equipment. Some, like fake plastic trees, are replaceable with cash; some, like shrubbery, are replaceable with stamina (shrubbery comes from nights of ni at a reasonable rate -- perhaps 1 in 20 stamina).

But other items are just too rare to replace as often as you lose them.

Since the loss rate and the generation rate are not balanced, you cannot recover losses fast enough to stay in the raid game.

So, not only do you need some sort of PvE component to act as a gold fountain, we also need some faster generation of improvements.

[Mad Merlin]

Alright, I think I'm done with raids.

Here's what I see as the final, fatal flaw:

Once you get your campground damaged, your power is lower, and you are easier to damage more. While I was trying to get some of the items I lost re-purchased, and installed, I lost more.

Basically, trying to turn raiding on (placing improvements) while you don't have a full set of improvements for your level just means that you are weaker than the other people who are at that level. It wasn't so bad while I was just raiding back and forth with one person, but now I'm in a two-front war, and losing -- losing items faster than I can replace them (getting hit by two people).

===

Fundamentally, raiding has the function of destroying certain equipment. Some, like fake plastic trees, are replaceable with cash; some, like shrubbery, are replaceable with stamina (shrubbery comes from nights of ni at a reasonable rate -- perhaps 1 in 20 stamina).

But other items are just too rare to replace as often as you lose them.

Since the loss rate and the generation rate are not balanced, you cannot recover losses fast enough to stay in the raid game.

So, not only do you need some sort of PvE component to act as a gold fountain, we also need some faster generation of improvements.

I don't think increasing the drop rate for campground improvements is the solution. That's just an arms race and you increase the drop rate equally for both sides. The net result is either null, or to always keep both sides at full stock (boring).

I think a better solution is to introduce more of a skill element to campground raids. I don't have a good way of doing so yet, but I'm pretty sure that's a better solution. Maybe you could plant time limited traps at your campground, or actually have to navigate through the Hedge Maze in a fixed amount of time (for example). Something along those lines would introduce skill and also make raiding a lot more interesting.

The PvE aspect of campground raiding is still something to consider. Hindsight being 20/20, most other games implement PvP as only a slight modification of PvE, a strict implementation of that is tricky for Game! (Game! works in real time, but it's quite unusual to have two players at the same level playing at exactly the same time, at least with the existing relatively small community) and thus I improvised a PvP system that was mostly completely different than the regular battle system. Perhaps a character's regular stats should have more of an impact on raiding.

In the beginning, it was impossible to back out of raiding (even with 0 improvements, you could still be raided once you ticked the initial raid boxes, and there was no Bank), which was intentional, but I also didn't want raiding to interfere with regular play. That is, even if you're getting utterly savaged via raids, you should still be able to continue on normally in regular PvE. Since then I've actually moved away from that in several ways (can't be raided with no improvements, dropping items when attacks go especially badly), and it seems to be a net positive effect, so maybe there's something to be said for that approach.

Edit: Another option would be to have separate attack and defense stats. I was initially hesitant to do so because I expected (some) people to turtle like crazy and then just wait for people to attack them. This obviously works poorly if everyone does it. However, if there was ample motivation to attack and also ample motivation to topple the turtles, it would probably work better. In a similar vein, someone could choose to target your offensive or defensive power in a raid. Obviously, going for the defenses would make further attacks easier, but would leave them wide open to a counterattack. On the other hand, you could go for the offensive power and cripple your enemy's counterattack instead.

Edit2: Perhaps campground improvements should transition from core requirements for raiding into trump cards. That is, having a full complement of campground improvements is the exception, not the rule (after having implemented some or all of the above paragraphs).

[keybounce]

But even in regard to edit #2, if campground improvements are intended to be "trump" and not "everyone's at full or not playing", you will still find people that won't begin to play unless they are at full.

Basically, it boils down to this:

1. If campground improvements are your defense (as they seem to be), then not being as strong as the other guy means that you will gain less and lose more in PvP -- so you want to be at full or not playing.
2. If pets are your primary defense, and campground improvements only minor adds, but still expensive losses, then you still don't want to lose.
3. As long as the "strike at 12:01 to get in the first blow" factor gives a bonus to striking first, people will.
4. As long as rage gives you an attack bonus equal to what you've lost, then there is no bonus to striking first, except that you can strike first on people lower level than you, who have less stuff than you, giving you an advantage, and forcing them to retaliate against you only.
5. As long as rage drops at 11:59, there is an incentive to use any remaining raids at 11:59, reducing the retribution that you receive.

Solutions? I don't know.

- The attacker can attack someone weaker (in a different pet or improvement category), getting an advantage.
- Defenders can be forced to only attack people stronger than them
- The only solution to that is to give rage bonuses that are bigger than your losses
- And then no one wants to attack first.

What I do know is, I'm out.

[thousandinone]

1. If campground improvements are your defense (as they seem to be), then not being as strong as the other guy means that you will gain less and lose more in PvP -- so you want to be at full or not playing.
2. If pets are your primary defense, and campground improvements only minor adds, but still expensive losses, then you still don't want to lose.
3. As long as the "strike at 12:01 to get in the first blow" factor gives a bonus to striking first, people will.
4. As long as rage gives you an attack bonus equal to what you've lost, then there is no bonus to striking first, except that you can strike first on people lower level than you, who have less stuff than you, giving you an advantage, and forcing them to retaliate against you only.
5. As long as rage drops at 11:59, there is an incentive to use any remaining raids at 11:59, reducing the retribution that you receive.

Well, heres my take on your points.

1- Theres no real way to have a pvp system that uses accrued opposed statistics that won't have some people refusing to participate unless they are maxed out. The only way to prevent this is to make everyone even, which kind of defeats the whole point. I don't see how this is really a valid point, all that considered.

2. Does anyone ever want to lose? Losing is either a negative or a neutral, and its only a neutral if you don't have anything to lose. No stakes makes for boredom, and its pretty unbalanced to have the opportunity to 'win' without the risk of some loss.

3, 4, 5: Got some ideas for these.


Ok, so it seems that the main problems here are 'abuse' of the reset timers and the huge discrepancy in power possible between 2 players, depending on level, and also the idea being tossed around about adding PVE bonuses for PVP.

This should be something thats workable. I just want to stress I am NOT a programmer, and I am unfamiliar with the backend for Game, though I presume the bulk of the data is stored in some form of database. Going out on a limb and guessing it's some form of SQL, and pardon me if I'm completely offbase.

If it is in fact a SQL database, I believe additional columns can be added to entire tables pretty readily with a single query. In fact, this should really be possible for any database type, but I digress...

The second assumption I'm making is that there is some form of limit to the number of raids possible, both offensive and defensive. If not a hard-coded limit, a de facto limit imposed by the maximal value of all equipment/improvements/pets/etc that contribute to the number of raids.

So, if we can assume that there is an upper limit to the number of raids possible...

How about, instead of refreshing raids and rage at the same time every day, instead recording a timestamp + data for each raid 'slot,' eg. Time raid took place, any rage gained if applicable. Check the database every hour or so, and when it's been more than 23 hours since the raid slot was stamped, clear the slot. This'll effectively put it on a sliding schedule rather than a one time refresh.

As far as rage goes- How exactly are we identifying who attacked our campground while we were away? Perhaps have rage work as an all-around offensive bonus rather than specific to the target.

When done this way, rage decay can be handled similarly. I presume one cell per entry is used for the current rage value- I propose that this be maintained, with a second cell to indicate decaying rage, and a third to indicate decay rate. These will start at 0. Calculate Current rage by adding the rage values for all defensive rage slots together with the 'decaying rage' value. When 23 hours have passed since a defensive raid was used, add it's value to the 'decaying rage' cell and increment the 'decay rate' by a value proportional to the total amount of rage and the expected decay rate. At whatever the preferred rage decay interval is, reduce the value of the 'decaying rage' cell by the 'decay rate' cells current value.

When rage is 'spent' spend from 'decaying rage' first, then the oldest defensive raids rage value, and so on.

This prevents waiting for the opportune moment to strike to gain a 'first strike' upperhand at 12:01 or mitigating rage by attacking at 11:59.



As far as PVP balancing goes...

I'm not sure how success or failure is calculated now, but perhaps a proportional 'buffer' of sorts could come to play, based on attack power vs. defensive power. The way I see it, even at extreme stat differences, there should always be a chance to win or lose, otherwise you can potentially have players with no chance and unbeatable players.

So I propose the following adjustments to how raids are calculated.

1) For each raid, randomize attackers attack and defenders defense between 75% and 125% of stat value.
2) Add attackers attack + defenders defense, then divide attackers attack by the total for % chance of victory. This would never exceed 90% or drop below 10% regardless of stats.

Example: I have 100 attack, Bob has 100 defense.
Randomization is in my favor, and my effective attack becomes 125 and his effective defense becomes 75.

Total this- 200. Divide my attack of 125 by 200 to receive: 0.625 or 62.5% chance of victory, 37.5% chance of loss.

Then, generate a random number between 0 and 1, and compare it- if it's .375 or less, lose, if its above, win.



Taking that to an extreme: Uberleet (1000 attack) vs Ubernoober (10 defense). We'll say, for this example, that they both rolled average and didnt get a bonus or penalty to their stat.

Stat total: 1010. Uberleet attack/total (1000/1010) = ~99%. But thats over 90%, so that'd get rolled back...



This way, powergamers who engage in pvp would have to stay on their toes, as even a much weaker player would have a chance to do some damage, albeit a low one.



And that brings me to my last bit- PVE bonuses.

This shouldn't be too tough to pull off, and I have just the thing to apply it to- stamina per day.

Yes. you heard me.

We are improving/raiding campgrounds, where we presumably sleep, yes? And I imagine its easier to get a good nights sleep in a nice, secure campground than it would be in a completely empty, exposed campground (both because of physical comfort and feeling of safety).

On the other hand, we shouldn't PENALIZE anyone stamina either, so lets make 100% stamina per day the bottom end.

So how to determine the bonus? Campground improvements! Each item used to improve your campground has a level requirement, and you have a level. Assign a value to each campground improvement, and set breaking points by level based on a percentage of the total value available at that level, say, 75%. If the value of your improvements is less than or equal to 75% of the maximal value available at your level, you get 100% stamina per day. For each percentage point over that 75%, you'd get a bonus 1% stamina per day.

So if you've got every possible improvement available at your level, you'd get 125% stamina per day, giving you a notable but not huge advantage.

How to balance it? Well, increase your defensive raids per day and the level range that can raid you in BOTH DIRECTIONS based off of this. I imagine a decked out campground is more visible and a more attractive target, if harder to succeed against, right? So the more stuff you have, the more people can raid you, and the more times per day you can be raided.

And to top it off- the stamina bonus only applies if you've opted to participate in PVP. Call it a perk to offset the PVE losses possible by engaging in PVP.

Like it, hate it, whatever- just something I'm throwing out there that may not be feasible to code at all depending on how the Game! backend is structured.

[Mad Merlin]

How about, instead of refreshing raids and rage at the same time every day, instead recording a timestamp + data for each raid 'slot,' eg. Time raid took place, any rage gained if applicable. Check the database every hour or so, and when it's been more than 23 hours since the raid slot was stamped, clear the slot. This'll effectively put it on a sliding schedule rather than a one time refresh.

An excellent idea.

As far as rage goes- How exactly are we identifying who attacked our campground while we were away? Perhaps have rage work as an all-around offensive bonus rather than specific to the target.

The problem with making rage not specific to your attacker is that it allows one to buff themselves up with rage before attacking an unsuspecting target (with full rage - ouch!).

When done this way, rage decay can be handled similarly. I presume one cell per entry is used for the current rage value- I propose that this be maintained, with a second cell to indicate decaying rage, and a third to indicate decay rate. These will start at 0. Calculate Current rage by adding the rage values for all defensive rage slots together with the 'decaying rage' value. When 23 hours have passed since a defensive raid was used, add it's value to the 'decaying rage' cell and increment the 'decay rate' by a value proportional to the total amount of rage and the expected decay rate. At whatever the preferred rage decay interval is, reduce the value of the 'decaying rage' cell by the 'decay rate' cells current value.

When rage is 'spent' spend from 'decaying rage' first, then the oldest defensive raids rage value, and so on.

This prevents waiting for the opportune moment to strike to gain a 'first strike' upperhand at 12:01 or mitigating rage by attacking at 11:59.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here, I think you got lost in the details without outlining the big picture first. However, I think the same sliding scale suggested above could be applied to Rage too, as it would guarantee 24 hours worth of Rage for both sides, no matter when the raiding occurs.

As far as PVP balancing goes...

I'm not sure how success or failure is calculated now, but perhaps a proportional 'buffer' of sorts could come to play, based on attack power vs. defensive power. The way I see it, even at extreme stat differences, there should always be a chance to win or lose, otherwise you can potentially have players with no chance and unbeatable players.

So I propose the following adjustments to how raids are calculated.

1) For each raid, randomize attackers attack and defenders defense between 75% and 125% of stat value.
2) Add attackers attack + defenders defense, then divide attackers attack by the total for % chance of victory. This would never exceed 90% or drop below 10% regardless of stats.

Example: I have 100 attack, Bob has 100 defense.
Randomization is in my favor, and my effective attack becomes 125 and his effective defense becomes 75.

Total this- 200. Divide my attack of 125 by 200 to receive: 0.625 or 62.5% chance of victory, 37.5% chance of loss.

Then, generate a random number between 0 and 1, and compare it- if it's .375 or less, lose, if its above, win.



Taking that to an extreme: Uberleet (1000 attack) vs Ubernoober (10 defense). We'll say, for this example, that they both rolled average and didnt get a bonus or penalty to their stat.

Stat total: 1010. Uberleet attack/total (1000/1010) = ~99%. But thats over 90%, so that'd get rolled back...



This way, powergamers who engage in pvp would have to stay on their toes, as even a much weaker player would have a chance to do some damage, albeit a low one.

This is similar to the current method, actually. Right now the attacker's attack is taken as a random number in the range [attack/2, attack + rage], and the defender's defense is taken as a random number in the range [defense/2, defense + rage], if attack is greater than defense, then the attacker wins, otherwise the defender wins. Further, if the attacker loses by a margin greater than 20%, there's a 30% chance of dropping one of the items they have equipped at the time.

Using the method you proposed would make the chance for winning and losing change more slowly as attack/defense diverge, and would avoid the situation of unbeatable players, both of which seem like good qualities. I would probably omit clamping the chance range to [10%, 90%] though, the inherent avoidance of 0% and 100% seems good enough on its own.

And that brings me to my last bit- PVE bonuses.

This shouldn't be too tough to pull off, and I have just the thing to apply it to- stamina per day.

Yes. you heard me.

We are improving/raiding campgrounds, where we presumably sleep, yes? And I imagine its easier to get a good nights sleep in a nice, secure campground than it would be in a completely empty, exposed campground (both because of physical comfort and feeling of safety).

On the other hand, we shouldn't PENALIZE anyone stamina either, so lets make 100% stamina per day the bottom end.

So how to determine the bonus? Campground improvements! Each item used to improve your campground has a level requirement, and you have a level. Assign a value to each campground improvement, and set breaking points by level based on a percentage of the total value available at that level, say, 75%. If the value of your improvements is less than or equal to 75% of the maximal value available at your level, you get 100% stamina per day. For each percentage point over that 75%, you'd get a bonus 1% stamina per day.

So if you've got every possible improvement available at your level, you'd get 125% stamina per day, giving you a notable but not huge advantage.

How to balance it? Well, increase your defensive raids per day and the level range that can raid you in BOTH DIRECTIONS based off of this. I imagine a decked out campground is more visible and a more attractive target, if harder to succeed against, right? So the more stuff you have, the more people can raid you, and the more times per day you can be raided.

And to top it off- the stamina bonus only applies if you've opted to participate in PVP. Call it a perk to offset the PVE losses possible by engaging in PVP.

Actually, I like this idea quite a bit. It gives further meaning to PvP and would certainly encourage more people to participate in it. Part of me wonders if this would just cause everyone to make peace treaties with everyone else so that they can all keep the stamina bonus. However, another part of me knows that some people just couldn't resist picking on the bigger targets, especially if the Wise Sage kept a top 10.

When you say increase the level range that can raid you (both up and down), I assume that would only be one way, in that a level 20 character might be able to be raided by levels 10 through 30, but they'd still only be able to raid characters of level 17 through 23 (with the exception of retaliation raids).

[thousandinone]

I went with the whole shpiel of making rage a general figure rather than target specific with a standpoint of 'makes sense' and 'simple to code' as opposed to a game balance/practicality standpoint, which is likely the falling here.

I mean, as far as makes sense goes, A) If you're not at your campground and awake, it'd be pretty tough to identify specifically who wrecked your crib, and B) People often (unfortunately) take their anger out on others or misplace the target of their anger.

And as far as simple to code goes, I imagine it'd be easier (both in terms of code complexity and server performance to track and decay a single rage value than rage values for multiple targets.

As far as the balance issue goes, with people stacking rage and then using it on a weaker target... I don't really see this as necessarily being unbalanced. As I understand it, rage is generated only when you are succesfully attacked and take some form of loss. To use it to bully another player then, you'd be taking a significant loss compared to your potential gain (lower rewards from raiding lower level players, simply due to less income and items available at lower levels). Theres potential for griefing, of course, but if someones already willing to take a loss just to hurt someone else, I don't think theres ANY way to codeproof that.

That said, I can definitely see the reasoning behind rage being target specific as well, and it's not my code, so...




As far as the 10%, 90% clamping range, those numbers were arbitrary; the idea was to always have some chance of success/failure regardless of disparity (Similar to the idea of a natural 1 vs. a natural 20, which would correllate to 5%, 95% respectively I suppose). I thought some clamp range would be appropriate, because even if technically it's not possible to get 100% chance of success, add rounding into the picture and large disparities could work out to 100% success or fail anyway. Maybe just 1%/99% then?



As far as peace treaties go, I imagine it'd workout to a larger scale version of the prisoners dillemma, with some caveats. If all players cooperate, they all gain the stamina bonus, but they also lose the rewards gained by successfully attacking others. And of course, once attacked, the players will counterattack... I imagine it'd work out


And yeah, you're exactly right with the level range- In your example, a decked out level 20 would be raidable by 10-30, but would only be able to raid 17-23 (retaliation notwithstanding)... except for those outside of that range with enough upgrades to expand THEIR range to include 20.

Basically proposing making being raidable a function of the targets level and improvements, rather than a function of the raiders level.

[keybounce]

1- Theres no real way to have a pvp system that uses accrued opposed statistics that won't have some people refusing to participate unless they are maxed out. The only way to prevent this is to make everyone even, which kind of defeats the whole point. I don't see how this is really a valid point, all that considered.

Lets say you have the ability to turn off PvP, or turn it back on. Lets say that we've got a good anti-jerk system, so you don't turn it on, attack, and then turn it off before you can be attacked back.

In such a system, the only time to have it turned on is when you are "perfect". So then, you find that people won't participate unless they are maxed out, and everyone is even.

What causes this?
1. No incentive to be PvP eligible if you are not perfect. There are no "generic L7 weak campground", "Generic L7 medium campground", and "Generic L7 Strong Campground". There is no PvE side to the PvP.

As mentioned, most games with PvP have it as an extension of PvE.

2. No "tradeoffs" -- no "Installing this removes that".

3. No "Imbalance protection". Most games have some sort of "You can only PvP people who aren't too far from you". Games that don't have that do have some grouping, so you can be protected by your guild, or your party members, etc.

2. Does anyone ever want to lose? Losing is either a negative or a neutral, and its only a neutral if you don't have anything to lose. No stakes makes for boredom, and its pretty unbalanced to have the opportunity to 'win' without the risk of some loss.

I had no problem at all with wins and losses in PvP, until my campground got ruined to the point that it was in significantly worse shape than anyone else I could play with.

Wins and losses are just gold.
Loss of campground improvements that are hard or impossible to replace? Suddenly I'm weaker, and the usual issue of a board game where one side is being demolished -- the demolish will accelerate, and the other side wins. For a board game, no problem -- reset and start over. For this PvP system? I can't reset until I've got everything again.

Ok, so it seems that the main problems here are 'abuse' of the reset timers and the huge discrepancy in power possible between 2 players, depending on level, and also the idea being tossed around about adding PVE bonuses for PVP.

There's a minor level-based effect when you reach the point where you can get a new pet, or a new improvement.

The PvE fountaining aspect is critical, as otherwise you don't want to play unless you are at 100%

This should be something thats workable. I just want to stress I am NOT a programmer, and I am unfamiliar with the backend for Game, though I presume the bulk of the data is stored in some form of database. Going out on a limb and guessing it's some form of SQL, and pardon me if I'm completely offbase.

Ideas should never even consider the mechanics of what's happening under the hood. If the data system is such that the idea is unworkable, then the idea can be modified to fit the data.

Other than that, it doesn't matter if it is SQL, object records, fixed-length data records, or an automated grain counter.

The second assumption I'm making is that there is some form of limit to the number of raids possible, both offensive and defensive.

Yes, you get a certain number of raids based on your equipment. If you are attacked, you can attack them back, but otherwise an attack consumes one unit from both the attacker and the defender.

Pros: You cannot be attacked 5 times from each of the 6 alts someone else has.
Cons: If you are attacked by someone stronger than you, you can only attack them back.

Possible improvement: Have separate offensive and defensive raids left per day. You can still only be attacked N times, but now you can choose who your N attacks are sent to.

And that brings me to my last bit- PVE bonuses.

This shouldn't be too tough to pull off, and I have just the thing to apply it to- stamina per day.

Yes. you heard me.

... So the more stuff you have, the more people can raid you, and the more times per day you can be raided.

And to top it off- the stamina bonus only applies if you've opted to participate in PVP. Call it a perk to offset the PVE losses possible by engaging in PVP.

You've got an interesting point in here. Right now the idea is that you can only raid people who are around your level. What if you could only raid people whose campground is about as good as your campground; or, where your level matches their campground (instead of their level).

[Mad Merlin]

And as far as simple to code goes, I imagine it'd be easier (both in terms of code complexity and server performance to track and decay a single rage value than rage values for multiple targets.

As far as the balance issue goes, with people stacking rage and then using it on a weaker target... I don't really see this as necessarily being unbalanced. As I understand it, rage is generated only when you are succesfully attacked and take some form of loss. To use it to bully another player then, you'd be taking a significant loss compared to your potential gain (lower rewards from raiding lower level players, simply due to less income and items available at lower levels). Theres potential for griefing, of course, but if someones already willing to take a loss just to hurt someone else, I don't think theres ANY way to codeproof that.

As far as performance goes, it's pretty much a wash either way, as people rarely have rage towards more than a a very small handful of people at any particular time (the average at the moment is closer to 1 than 2).

I think the current solution for Rage is the best as far as balance goes, so I'm going to stick with it. Some people are quite wealthy and to them buffing up via Rage would be very cost effective if they really wanted to attack someone.

As far as the 10%, 90% clamping range, those numbers were arbitrary; the idea was to always have some chance of success/failure regardless of disparity (Similar to the idea of a natural 1 vs. a natural 20, which would correllate to 5%, 95% respectively I suppose). I thought some clamp range would be appropriate, because even if technically it's not possible to get 100% chance of success, add rounding into the picture and large disparities could work out to 100% success or fail anyway. Maybe just 1%/99% then?

For the actual implementation, I would omit the division by the total (thus eliminating the rounding error), then simply select a random number between 0 and the total to decide the winner. Due to the fact that it's not possible to participate in raiding with 0 attack/defense, it's always possible for either side to win.

And that brings me to my last bit- PVE bonuses.

This shouldn't be too tough to pull off, and I have just the thing to apply it to- stamina per day.

Yes. you heard me.

... So the more stuff you have, the more people can raid you, and the more times per day you can be raided.

And to top it off- the stamina bonus only applies if you've opted to participate in PVP. Call it a perk to offset the PVE losses possible by engaging in PVP.

You've got an interesting point in here. Right now the idea is that you can only raid people who are around your level. What if you could only raid people whose campground is about as good as your campground; or, where your level matches their campground (instead of their level).

I think we both like this idea, although I think it also addresses this point without creating fountains:

1. No incentive to be PvP eligible if you are not perfect. There are no "generic L7 weak campground", "Generic L7 medium campground", and "Generic L7 Strong Campground". There is no PvE side to the PvP.

With all this talk of adjusting who can and can't be raided, I think there will be the need to introduce campground intelligence, that is, to be able to find out how strong someone else's campground is without having to run into it like a brick wall first. Especially so if stronger campgrounds are more visible targets. Alternatively, instead of (sorting by and) listing the character's level, there could be a textual description (such as "Extremely foreboding", or "More barren than the Sahara") of how strong someone's campground looks. Of course, counterintelligence would also be in order, either being able to make yourself look more or less powerful than you actually are would be quite useful.

I think there should probably also be an additional award that is available only for winning versus someone stronger than you, which would reduce the drive to always have a perfect campground.

2. No "tradeoffs" -- no "Installing this removes that".

This was also an interesting point. I was kinda thinking of turning campground improvements into something like this when I mentioned making a perfect campground the exception rather than the rule.

[thousandinone]

Another thought I had, that is definitely not my original idea.

I played on a MUD once that had four different PVP settings: Off, PVP-Green, PVP-Yellow, and PVP-Red.

With PVP Off, nobody could attack you, period.

With PVP Green on, you could be attacked by anyone within a very narrow band of your level.

PVP Yellow increased the range of those who could attack you considerably.

PVP Red made you an open target to anyone in PVP.


When you attacked another player, if you were at a 'lesser' PVP status than they were, your PVP status would be set to theres. Same or higher, no change in your PVP status.

You could also set your PVP flag to a higher setting at any time.

If you wanted to turn PVP off, you needed to wait 30 minutes logged in (realtime) since your last PVP action to decrement your PVP status one notch.

EG, if you set yourself to PVP Green and never attacked anyone, you would need to spend 30 real minutes logged in time before you could turn it back off.

If you attacked someone flagged PVP Red, you would then be flagged PVP Red. You would then need to wait 30 minutes without attacking anyone to set yourself down to PVP yellow, another 30 to pvp green, and another 30 to turn it off altogether (an hour and a half total).

This went by logged in time to prevent players from logging off, waiting for their timer to expire, then logging in and unflagging.


To encourage PVP activities, your experience gain rate would increase based on your PVP setting, with penalties for not being flagged to boot.

The penalties, however, were not across the board.

From a new character to a certain level (And I don't recall the specifics), there was no penalty to not being flagged for PVP, a small bonus for Green (5%?), a larger bonus for yellow (10%?), and a still larger bonus for red (25%?).

The next level range up gave a small penalty to experience gains for being unflagged (-5%?), normal gain rates for green, a small bonus for yellow (5%?), and a large bonus for red (25%?).

Finally, from the end of that range up to infinity, there was a moderate experience penalty for being unflagged (-10%), a small experience penalty for being flagged green (-5%), normal gain rate for yellow, and a large bonus for red (25%?).

There was never a penalty for being flagged yellow, and always a large bonus for being flagged red.




It worked out to a small (>10%?) portion of players eating the penalties and keeping the flags off, a lot of the players (50%?) portion keeping their flag at the minimum no-penalty level, a sizeable amount (30%?) going for a little bonus xp [this one is harder to quantify, given the way it worked out], and about the same number staying red as staying off for the maximal gains.

It's hard to quantify that because once you hit a certain level, red was the only option that gave bonuses.

What made it interesting was the risk factor in attacking a red flagged player. Sure, anyone could attack them, but in so doing the attacker would then be flagged red for at least 30 minutes, and be vulnerable to attack from anyone else.

In addition to all this, the game also included a hardcore mode. Rather than meaning one life to live, however, in this case It made the player permanently flagged PVP Red.

There were some perks to this though- hardcore players would not show up in the current area with the 'where' command, did not show up on hiscore lists, and were immune to the follow and consider commands, as well as teleport spells (except in cases where they specifically allowed a player to use these abilities on them).

So hardcore players enjoyed the bonuses of being flagged red constantly, and were particularly dangerous in that even a highly levelled player would have difficulty assessing the power of a hardcore character, even if they could locate said character.




So, with that mini-novel over with, applications to Game!?

Maybe have tiered PVP options, with appropriate bonuses, factored in as well. For example, we already have the framework in place for people to not participate in PVP, why not give them a few options with varying perks to make themself 'more vulnerable' in PVP?

We currently have a set range per level that can raid your campground. We've had some suggestions to set that level range based on campground improvements- on one hand, having more improvements broadening the range that can attack you, and on the other hand making the range that can attack you based on the attackers improvements compared to yours.

If either, both, or neither of these are taken into account, pvp 'levels' could be incorporated as well that expand on these. For example, If we were to use the Green, yellow, and red examples I described before...

If PVP Green, you would be vulnerable to the standard range of attackers (current, or adjusted based on either or both of the aforementioned suggestions).

If PVP Yellow, that range would be broadend by a notable amount (say, an extra 50% level range each way?)

If PVP Red, that range would be broadened further (double the range in both directions as Green maybe?)



Additionally, it might be worthwhile to allow players to reduce their PVP level. Given the nature of Game! I don't believe that time would be a good measure here, but we have a mechanic in place already to track overall player activity- stamina usage.

I can think of two things. First, a more forgiving approach, would be to require a player to spend X stamina fighting NPCs since their last offensive raid (including retaliation) before they god drop their PVP level. As this doesn't exactly require any sacrifice on the players part, I'd imagine that would be set to a relatively high amount, equal to a day or two of play- maybe 250 stamina used per pvp level? 500?

The second, and less forgiving approach, would perhaps be quicker but would require more of a sacrifice on the players part. Have an option in your campground to spend X stamina immediately to lower your PVP level by one notch. Maybe 125 or so, half of the 'forgiving' option. To make this work, perhaps allow any amount of stamina to be enterred, so the stamina cost can be paid in 'installments.' Of course, any offensive PVP action would reset your total, wasting any 'payments' you've already made...

This would allow players who's campgrounds have been annihilated a way to withdraw from PVP and rebuild, but prevent them from attacking and immediately turning PVP back off.

This would also readily allow for PVP bonuses to be adjusted based on PVP level. If the bonus value is X, then the actual bonus would be 0 for No PVP Flag, X for PVP Green, X*2 for PVP Yellow, X*3 for PVP Red, or something to that effect.

If, then, we said the maximal value of X, based on campground improvements were 10, and we went with bonus stamina...
A maxed out campground would give:
no bonus (100) to someone not engaging in PVP
10 stamina per day (110) to someone flagged PVP green
20 stamina per day (120) to someone flagged PVP yellow
30 stamina per day (130) to someone flagged PVP red.

This could easily be adjusted to any number of pvp ranges, or back down to just PVP on vs. PVP Off.

But I think that, especially in cases like those posted in this very thread, there should be some way for a high level player with a decimated campground to temporarily withdraw to rebuild.

[thousandinone]

Ideas should never even consider the mechanics of what's happening under the hood. If the data system is such that the idea is unworkable, then the idea can be modified to fit the data.

Other than that, it doesn't matter if it is SQL, object records, fixed-length data records, or an automated grain counter.

Oh, and this was bugging me- I disagree entirely. In regards to programming, while it's technically true that any Turing complete system should be able to execute any code that any other Turing complete system can, the speed at which said code can execute is ultimately dependent on the hardware it's run on, and even then, that's referring to low level operations. As far as actually implementing something goes, the data structure and APIs are quite important, as they are what determines the complexity and viability of implementing any particular idea.

Moreover, I hardly think you're qualified to dictate the format in which ideas "should" be presented in. While it's true that most ideas can be adjusted to be workable within any given system, the reality is that ideas that are easily workable within a given system are more likely to be implemented than ideas that would require an ugly hackjob of coding to pull off.

[Mad Merlin]

But I think that, especially in cases like those posted in this very thread, there should be some way for a high level player with a decimated campground to temporarily withdraw to rebuild.

This is an important point to bear in mind, and I think the PvP Green/Yellow/Red system is an interesting solution to it. On one hand, allowing sucker punches (attack and then turn off PvP) is no good, but there is certainly the need for one to be able to temporarily withdraw from PvP. Combined with the bonuses (or penalties) associated with the various PvP modes, it really seems like it would improve both PvP in and of itself, as well as add real incentive to participate in PvP without forcing anyone to join in if they don't want to.

[keybounce]

Ideas should never even consider the mechanics of what's happening under the hood.

the reality is that ideas that are easily workable within a given system are more likely to be implemented than ideas that would require an ugly hackjob of coding to pull off.

Rule #1 of optimizing programs: Never optimize early.
Rule #2: Get it right first, and optimize it second.

Rule #3: As a corollary, you may have to rewrite.

===
If you only limit yourself to ideas that are easily implemented, then you fail to catch a lot of ideas. On the other hand, if you look at any idea, whether or not it is easy to implement, then you have the ability to look at things you might not have thought of. And that might lead to something that is easy to implement.

Or, even if you don't have an idea that is easy to implement, a subset of it might be.

[Mad Merlin]

Rule #1 of optimizing programs: Never optimize early.
Rule #2: Get it right first, and optimize it second.

Actually, I prefer this rendition...

The rules for optimization:
1. Don't do it.
2. Don't do it yet. (experts only)

If you only limit yourself to ideas that are easily implemented, then you fail to catch a lot of ideas. On the other hand, if you look at any idea, whether or not it is easy to implement, then you have the ability to look at things you might not have thought of. And that might lead to something that is easy to implement.

Or, even if you don't have an idea that is easy to implement, a subset of it might be.

Here I agree completely.

[Chakravanti]

I like the Stoplight system but there should be a bonus for players not engaged in PVP (But not much) so that newbies can play around with campground functionality and understand the system before engaging in it.

I also suggest upkeep to deal with the incentive to keep funds at the campground. You could make it as complex (hire laborers to buy materials, keep materials and funds stocked, make repairs/etc.) or simple (Straight funds deduction from the chest) or start with the latter andbuild on it slowly.

There would be a regular system deduction based on the formula of available cash and cost of improvements (regardless of level). If the Maxmium payment is %10, upkeep is 500/interval and the coffers have 4500 then 450 will be payed in upkeep and the campground has say roughly 10x "life points" relative to the upkeep So it would suffer %1 decay (and defensive/offensive suffers as a result).

To improve incentive to keep the coffers "full" make it so that repairs are automatically done at each interval. If repairs need to be done on a decayed property then you're not only vulnerable but have to expose extra funds to being raided (enough to pay all past due, maybe with interest, and enough to make that payment under %10).

So the incentive to keep coffers full is presentand the fomula can be adjusted to suit whatever intervals you want to choose.

Doing this also creates a Second function for pets and building supplies.

Any plans to include a system for 'clans' or 'group campgrounds & raids'?

Maybe add permadeath as a stamina multiplier in and of itself (2x?) Anyone should be able to go permadeath that has not died. Raiders should have the option to kill their victims or not.

A person Raising a higher PVP flag shouldn't be able to Descend their PVP or Permadeath status.

Campgrounds could also be expanded to produce/keep raw resources like farm animals, laborers/pets, mines, advanced combinatorial workshops for handling raw resources, etc.

Trade between progressively deadlier classes of PVP should be disallowed from trading in order to prevent safer manufacture of PVP equipment at a certain threshold of the game's population growth.
For instance, Non-permadeath level/class restricted PKers trading with deadly unreserticted is a cheap crock of $%!7

Just my .02 do what you will with it. Great game, btw.