Whats killing the game. Super-players

[Ferinex]

You didn't even read my post at all.

[Ferinex]

Anyone whos ever fought anyone knows this.

So who exactly did you fight? What were their stats what were your stats? Did you try any of the things I suggested, or are you dismissing them out of hand because your basic attacks weren't working?

GUIS MY CHOP ISN'T EVEN HITTIN SAMI WAAAAAAAH :'(

[theTrav]

You are only dismissing this because you are afraid to lose your time advantage on anyone joining. Thats the gist of it

Re-read my first reply... I actually agreed with you.

I don't even need to post after this.

Absolutely, I invite you to stop posting all up, forever in protest of our unfairness

[Machenoid]

As a notice, the same problem also occurs in other MMOs.
The problem, you see, is a reverse downward spiral. In a downward spiral, aka the slippery slope, the player is punished for doing poorly, which ultimately results in the player being less and less likely to do well the longer he plays. Once the downward trend is started, it is difficult if not impossible to stop. In a reverse downward spiral, the opposite is true; the player is rewarded for playing well, which permits him to play even better then when he was not being rewarded for being so great. In order to stop "Super players" from appearing, the game mechanics need to be set so that neither an upward nor a downward spiral can be initiated, or if that is impossible (which it likely is) then said spirals are to be limited in some way, to stop them from moving towards infinity.

As well, the primary cause of the seeming necessity for this to occur within a RPG MMO is in order to simulate the player gaining strength to fight the "final boss" ... They must obtain obscenely powerful magical weapons that dwarf the initial equipment set many (hundreds of) times over, because in order to make said final boss "not a push over" that final boss needs many tens of hundreds (or in some cases, hundreds of thousands) of hitpoints -- primarilly due to the problems of using a hitpoint system instead of other systems, like limb/locational damage.

...
As an example of one of the many power spirals (not even talking about H&H, this could be ANY game) health is improved by increases when strength and constitution are increased. This means someone with 100 str will ALWAYS have more max hp then someone with <100 str. To prevent or limit this power spiral from forming, the game would be re-designed to accomidate a fixed hitpoint system, where every player has a set max hitpoint value, but where strength and constitution influence health regeneration rates for hard and soft hitpoints, respectively; and that said regeneration only occurs after some time combat has ended.

Thus, two players with differing strength and constitution levels can kill each other with equal chances in the initial fight due to their fixed max HP values, but should one of them choose to retreat and regenerate their health, then that player is rewarded for making a good tactical descision; not for having the most hitpoints, or even the best regeneration (since regeneration doesn't occur in combat, and thus, can not influence a single fight -- only multiple fights)

[kobnach]

You know, having players more advanced than me doesn't bug me. It doesn't even bug me that because I'm not a macroer and do have a life I'm not likely to catch up to them What bugs me are antisocial players, particularly those who are also more advanced than me, and particularly those who attack others for amusement or generalized malice. As it happens, I believe this describes the originator of this thread - just in case any readers don't understand why other posters were talking about irony.

[Jackard]

antisocial enough to form a guild and raise the population single-handedly :v

[theTrav]

Machenoid, I think your wall of text was unnecessary, most readers have a pretty clear understanding of the exponential skill growth / reward problem, however it doesn't exist in H&H because reward tops out in mordor and skill growth has exponential cost both in LP to combat skill and in FEP to stats.

Therefore after a certain point (it's a high level I'll give you that much) it's much harder to increase your lead than it is for other players to catch you.

[Yolan]

While I hate to admit it, I agree with JTG to a point. I don't think that the ability to make God characters is wrong in all MMOs per se, but I do think it goes against the spirit of this one, at least as far as with what the Devs envision.

The way I see it, this is a world where the Devs want to see hero players, with the strenght of a Beowulf, yet still 'mortal' when it comes down to it. So, two or three mid level players should be able to take down a top level guy. I may be wrong, but I'm not convinced that this is currently possible.

I know that in the future we are going to see burial stuff added, with Tumuli, Barrows, graves etc, ancestors and all that, effecting your stats. It might be that we will see an increase in the 'mortality' of players when this kind of long term multi-character system is improved.

As I understand it, J&L want the rewards of being a hero to be great, but the risk should be comparably considerable.

I wait in anticpiation for the Halls of Valhalla!

[provo]

i agree with Yolan, about the problem of super characters, in all manner game aspects.But today where talking about super-fighting skills.

The problem is MMORPG always have super players, who spend too much time on the computer and fuck the game up for everyone else and is why i don't play those types of game.

Whilst super players is not a "gaming" problem, in that its common place, but without NPC guards, auto-laws and re-spawns to temper the effect on the in game society they become distorted and the only reason such super players don't drive players from WoW is this heavy regulation. The super players of WoW exist with more limitation then the super players of H&H.

What we are experiencing is that the game society dosn't look like the real world because of these super players. The devs are unwilling to utilise bullshit methods like auto-laws, NPC gaurds spawning on criminals and safe zones, because that would undermine the entire purpose of the game. So i would suggest looking to why super-players don't exist in real life and ill run through some examples. Begin wall of text, whats in quotations are little example stories, that can probably be skipped if you agree with me.

1. Real-Super player, vs real 2 noobies.

"I'll Clarify that im in a reserve unit of the army, and was doing a exercise practicing a range of defensive tactics and arrests ect. The scenario was 2 soldiers had to subdue a aggressive civilian armed with a bat. The guy playing the civilian has been to Iraq protecting diplomats, is in his peak of physical fitness, a western trained and highly motivated solider in addition to experience in a warzone, and he was armed with a bat. He is the closest thing to a real life super player. One of other soldiers was strait out of basic training, 19, short and not that heavy set and the other solider a slightly more experienced solider 32 and of average fitness, in many ways we have a noobie, and maybe a medium player.

Unsurprisingly the two new soldiers won the battle and subdued the violent civilian. THe only reason it was a battle at all was that the "civilian" knew that if he allowed the two solider to strike at a moment of their choosing he would be defeated quickly. So the "civilian" aggressive attacked the weaker solider. The weaker solider withstood an aggressive strike with the bat and grabbed the "civilians" arm and attempted a head lock. But due to the aggressive charge it wasn't very effective. As the "civilian" was distracted the other soldiers did an arm lock and pushed the "civilian" over. Once on the ground the solider mounted him, as the weaker solider broke free. Having the advantage over the "civilian" the soldiers quickly over powered him won the fight.

When fighting multiple-opponents focusing on one target means you’re not watching the others and if you’re not focusing on our attacks you can't push home an advantage. The reason that the weaker solider broke free was that the "civilian" was distracted by the new attacker. "


The benefits for one soldiers abilities were completely lost by the fact he only has 2 hands. 2 people have 4 hands. In addition they are able to move around and allow one set of hands to commit to a battle as the other waits for the best chance to strike at their opponent. In real life 3x lvl 1 bandits should be able to knock anyone in this game world out.

Response to obvious criticism to what i said..
"Police always operate in situation where they are outnumber"
-Police work with a shit load of intimidation, and the knowledge they can call more backup then you can possibly deal with.

"We have all this body armour that’s why we are safe"
-Modern soldiers have body armour that can withstand bullets, that will keep them alive long enough for there comrades to regain control and pull him to safety and get medical treatment. If they withdraw, the body armour will not protect him once he is captured. Body amour is not a force field. It may defeat initial inaccurate attacks, but if you held a knight down you could slip a simple blade into his armour and kill him.

"I have this kick ass sword that kills people because i have such a high skill level in melee"
-Weapons are designed to make weaker people more capable of killing people. Punching someone to death requires a lot of strength and good technique so you don't break your hand punching. Knives almost regardless of the strength of the person holding it will deliver mortal wounds. A firearm will kill people regardless of the physical attributes of the user.

So, The damage delivered by most weapons in the H&H should deliver a equal level of damage regardless of skill of the user. And the damage done by a punch should be significantly less than the damage done by a stone axe.

I admit that skilled use in weapons will increase chances of striking with sword, or deflecting a strike, or accuracy of the weapon, reload time of a weapon ect. But it should be possible for a lvl 1 player to strike someone once who is unprepared and deliver a near lethal strike. Just like in real life

"But i have a much higher HPP that’s why i should survive multiple attacks"
-HHP increase is a game thing.. No amount of training can increase your ability to withstand damage 200% more injuries. That’s why we invented armour.

"im well trained that’s why i have an advantage"
-Most military training details advanced group tactics, not individual fighting ability. The training placed upon an individual person to improve their skills is limited. The most important thing would be practice and experience in improving a person’s fighting ability, where they repeated utilize basic skills and reinforce a fighting attitude. Chopping down more trees isn’t going to equate to battle experiences.

"Im a stronger character, with better stats, thats why i should be capable of killing people easier"
-Unfortunately the stats system in every RPGs is completely unlike the real world, there are limits to fitness and "Stats"

"This is a story from a British solider, who was in fitness competition with US marines on a UK Navy ship. The US marines were doing up to 200-300 push ups the British soldiers were doing 60-80. but in the run around the ship, the marines started stopping at 4-5 laps, but the British could keep going for 14-16. " At a certain point, increased strength effected speed and stamina.

-The relationship between the stats are more important in a fight as well. If anyone has fought to the point of exhaustion will understand how important stamina is in a fight, furthermore the ability to utilize stamina to demand more strength from muscles.

-Additionally assuming the US marines spend the most of their time increasing their strength as measured by push ups a limit of 300. It would be reasonable to suggest that a H&H character who spends time doing other things other than physical training and without world class gym instructors with modern science, they could at most reach 150-200. And assuming that H&H are of medium fitness given their labour driven existence, they could probably start with 40 push ups. Additionally 1 push up is easy to add to a fitness lvl. So strength should start at 40, max at 200 and be easy to improve.

So basically there a shit loads of reasons why H&H fighting is not like the real world and allows super characters. So if people want to limit super fighting skills. Maybe there are some solutions in the above.

[Jfloyd]

I think I may use this wall to protect my city. Thank you Provo.