Game Development: Strawberry Turpentine

[jordancoles]

would like to see some changes to siege to compliment it. Less ganking and more seiging, with people actually being forced outside their walls to defend their land.

Salem had this and in practice it was horrible. It forced players into combat and the larger/higher statted side won 100% of the time. It meant that no one on the server was safe and a small group of players could basically run everything and bully the entire community into the dirt (see MM Tribe). You need to realize that the stat/skill/gear gap between your average raiders/pvp players vs the average player is immense and if you were to force the average player into a combat situation it would basically never go well for them. They would be better off logging out for a few days and surrendering before anything had even begun.

Hermits/small villages/new players need things like archery towers/catapults for siege defense because pushing them into face-to-face combat just doesn't work out. The siege would be won the second the combat-oriented group placed their ram in the majority of cases.

[Vigilance]

As it stands the literal only reason to run out and fight is to gamble loot against other players' skills.

I sort of like that and would like to see some changes to siege to compliment it. Less ganking and more seiging, with people actually being forced outside their walls to defend their land. I can see why it's kind of shit that ganking yields little rewards now, but it feels like only PVPers really give a shit, people playing defensively will view this as positive.

if you like that, then this looting change is the opposite of something you should like, and no change to sieging at all short of scrapping the whole thing and trying to re-evaluate defender advantage will make it meaningful to try to break all but the top 3% of sieges per world with actual players instead of towers and catas.

I can see how this is rather a bandage and the real problem is the divide between hermits and the big factions. Kind of a symptom of this being an rpg is that people get those great stats and everyone else becomes scared to fight in any way. If there were no stat losses from death I'd probably throw on shit equipment and go to meteors and shit, even if I lose maybe me and my squad can catch a better player alone or something.

i don't really see how this is a take-away from this change at large for anything other than supporting the idea that making pvp any less rewarding than it already is is goofy as hell. i could write for hours why there needs to be smaller-stakes pvp objectives than GRAND METEOR (nice ql btw)

As it stands I support the change because it supports my playstyle and I treat "real" PVPers as extra-strong bears that might try to siege me. If I'm PVPing my group is punching down and the goal is to win a siege and smash their base, usually to drive them away or make them quit, not steal whatever they have on their character.

i personally have no dog in the fight other than my firm belief that risk-reward should at least have a semi reasonable balance. as for everything beyond the first few words: yes this is the only current use-case for siege, you dont siege for loot, you dont siege for any tangible shit, you siege to evict people from existing on that turf or for dick-waving. intelligent people hide or move virtually anything of import before their walls are even close to falling down

Salem had this and in practice it was horrible. It forced players into combat and the larger/higher statted side won 100% of the time. It meant that no one on the server was safe and a small group of players could basically run everything and bully the entire community into the dirt (see MM Tribe).

no dude its so fun to see people whining about top x percentile of players power-bullying them in Seatribe games.

Why is looting so important if the meta is to not leave the base with anything of value? What would anyone stand to gain from looting if that rule was perfectly followed?

because if someone leaves the walls with full ass kit, thingwalls their ass to a fight, they should be able to loot the hussars, gloves, steelplate, AND a couple curios, instead of needing to beeline for cool shit only.

Also love seeing power players and old gods with large groups decrying the devs for being out of touch from the game while conveniently ignoring or shitting on any playstyle other than their own.
Another suggestion to make it more palatable for them...

people like you are literally the sole reason this game gets trashcan patches confirmed/fueled by community input, so its pretty reasonable oldies will be trying to beat you with the "You're Wrong" bat over and over.

[jordancoles]

Looting is the peanut reward to pvp, I don't want that to be a game that requires 'skill'. I koed a dude, that's where the skill is.

Pretty much this. We don't need an extra minigame after the fight has already been won. Murder protection is enough. If you don't want to be dry-looted for things that you care about, then don't put the things that you care about at risk by bringing them outside.

Full-loot is the only real benefit to pvp that's left and dragging that down isn't exactly fun.

Scripts to drop-all aren't ideal, sure, but we can also just make scripts that prioritize certain ingame items to loot based on a loot hierarchy. I assume it would go something like: Drop the belt to the floor/in the water (rip all the hermit's tools btw), pick up b12/weapons and put them into your own belt, then grab thanes, troll helmet/dragon helm, pearls/blowholes in study, etc. (tweaked based on what you want more).

I just don't see the benefit and if anything, it creates a bigger incentive to pop murderous rage and to try to kill the person rather than just going for a handful of items

Why is looting so important if the meta is to not leave the base with anything of value? What would anyone stand to gain from looting if that rule was perfectly followed?

It is already followed by people who have been looted in the past and understand the risk that they're taking, but there is still incentive to bring out items with value for either convenience or for protection.

If you want to stand your ground you're going to want to bring some nice rings, steel weapons, armor, etc.. You could leave those things indoors, but if you'd rather have a chance of escaping rather than eating a KO and risking death, then it's smart to bring some 'loot' out with you.

If you can't afford to lose it, don't bring it. If you want to have a fighting chance, you'll need to bring some form of risk. This has been the case since forever and getting player loot hasn't been an issue in the past. Risk vs reward

[mulamishne]

Why is looting so important if the meta is to not leave the base with anything of value? What would anyone stand to gain from looting if that rule was perfectly followed?

There is pvp, where going out with subpar gear is bad. I wanna be rewarded for outplaying him by taking all of his gear. Even when I don't get upgrades, it's nice to have spare gear because making steel is obnoxious.

What if the cooldown only applied to players who weren't outlawed/red-handed (or had criminal acts off)?

This at least makes it so unwilling participants in combat e.g. the hermits getting ganked are less screwed.

1: if you take a piece of gear off another player you're red-handed. You can't even do it without criminal acts.
2: looting alt time
3: I don't think I've ever actually heard of hermits ever successfully koing the person who aggroed them and it's a helluva myth.

[Vigilance]

What if the cooldown only applied to players who weren't outlawed/red-handed (or had criminal acts off)?

This at least makes it so unwilling participants in combat e.g. the hermits getting ganked are less screwed.

1: if you take a piece of gear off another player you're red-handed. You can't even do it without criminal acts.
2: looting alt time
3: I don't think I've ever actually heard of hermits ever successfully koing the person who aggroed them and it's a helluva myth.

i think he meant "you can free-old-loot anyone outlawed" which basically means "this change never existed for anyone except a small spattering of hermits, and the people who only just logged in for the fight"

sounds awful to me, fam

[wonder-ass]

suggestion- pickaxe deals bonus damage to cave creatures the deeper you go.

[Apocoreo]

if you like that, then this looting change is the opposite of something you should like, and no change to sieging at all short of scrapping the whole thing and trying to re-evaluate defender advantage will make it meaningful to try to break all but the top 3% of sieges per world with actual players instead of towers and catas.

Hermits/small villages/new players need things like archery towers/catapults for siege defense because pushing them into face-to-face combat just doesn't work out. The siege would be won the second the combat-oriented group placed their ram in the majority of cases.

Hence why I was talking about siege changes. As it stands yeah, I see the need for them. Feels like it's all a symptom of it being a permadeath RPG, with the stats grind and permadeath being very contradictory features. Seems like they are choosing to compromise on the permadeath side of things.

Salem had this and in practice it was horrible. It forced players into combat and the larger/higher statted side won 100% of the time. It meant that no one on the server was safe and a small group of players could basically run everything and bully the entire community into the dirt (see MM Tribe).

Got any specific stories? Because that's how this game feels lol. The archery towers sure mitigate that, but if feels like the people that got the time to siege also happen to have the time to grind the highest stats, despite regular stat resets.

Also love seeing power players and old gods with large groups decrying the devs for being out of touch from the game while conveniently ignoring or shitting on any playstyle other than their own.
Another suggestion to make it more palatable for them...

people like you are literally the sole reason this game gets trashcan patches confirmed/fueled by community input, so its pretty reasonable oldies will be trying to beat you with the "You're Wrong" bat over and over.

I don't see how that's so. This change to looting has 0 negative effect on me, yet I see complaining from the kind of people who'd gank me. Is this update bad enough to make even "oldies" quit? Doubt it. And even if they did, reducing the playerbase, I know plenty that gave up this world after being KO'd and losing their best axe or whatever. I have had enough luck to not run into any of these folk this world so it probably would not change my gameplay at all beyond a sense of ease that I won't lose all my equipment on a KO.

So why should anyone that currently can't compete in pvp care?

I understand the need for more pvp activities (split the meteor up for the love of god), but this seems like a positive change for the meantime.

[Lalaxx]

lol I couldn't dry loot my alt before it could hearth when it didn't even have a full inventory or study. I like that you guys effectively removed death, and now you effectively removed full loot PVP as long as you're in the bigger group

I could very well consider making it faster; I mainly just didn't like the whole "first player to reach the fainted gets it all" mechanic. That being said, I'd expect most of the stuff that you'd loot from knocked players isn't really particularly important.

It's not the case. In large PvP always stayed only 1 man to loot the body all others should keep the chase. Now you need 3-4 man to stay because of new mechanic.

[Slowwalker]

To be sure, I never really viewed it as "loot protection", "leniency" or "forgiveness". The real goal was arguably just to make it a bit more of a game to loot someone than just click-a-button-and-it's-done -- to add a bit of a challenge to it. Clearly the looting part is an important part of PvP (you all seem to agree), and I generally think that it ought to be more fun when it's something that you can be more or less good at, which can have more varying degrees of success rather than a Boolean "looted or not" outcome; that was the whole intention. Feel free to suggest alternate suggestions that fulfill the same goal.

Suggestion: When opening the victim's inventory, not all things are shown, but some random amount. Perception * Exploration against Will * Stealth of the victim, for example. And there is a "search" button, which, some time after clicking, shows additional items. Each next press is 2 times longer than the previous one. When a character knocks / dies, each item in his inventory gets a unique number. When you open the inventory, items with numbers from 1 to [calculated by the formula] are displayed. This means that even if you take all the items "before the search" and reopen the inventory, you will still have to search it. You can start with a small number of visible items, and a search can give more of it. If the inventory is closed, you have to start all over again. Thus, there will be a looting minigame based on characteristics and luck.

[strpk0]

Suggestion: When opening the victim's inventory, not all things are shown, but some random amount. Perception * Exploration against Will * Stealth of the victim, for example. And there is a "search" button, which, some time after clicking, shows additional items. Each next press is 2 times longer than the previous one. When a character knocks / dies, each item in his inventory gets a unique number. When you open the inventory, items with numbers from 1 to [calculated by the formula] are displayed. This means that even if you take all the items "before the search" and reopen the inventory, you will still have to search it. You can start with a small number of visible items, and a search can give more of it. If the inventory is closed, you have to start all over again. Thus, there will be a looting minigame based on characteristics and luck.

So the current system, except even more of a death sentence and a giant waving "Please pile on me and kill me" flag to all of your enemies?
I think you haven't been reading the explanations people are giving on why the new system is bad, and why this suggestion would be even worse.

Besides, this would basically make it impossible to loot a strong player if a weaker player somehow managed to take them down.