Hey, folks - the 'mystery feature' is finally ready!
Nodeka now offers pvp-based character advancement:
Yeah, this one is pretty darn cool. =) Basically, pvp can grant you random improvements to your character's stats (up to 300), pools (up to your pool cap), and ability masteries. (Only abilities which grant benefits beyond 100% will be selected for improvement - which is why I needed to be able to identify those abilities internally, which resulted in the side-effect enhancement of the 'skills/class' command in the last update.)
This is a very important step for me in terms of design. I've babbled a lot about rewards and the difficulty of designing them; part of the reason that it's so difficult is that, in a nutshell, running has always been "superior" to pvp. While pvp on Nodeka can be a powerful, exciting experience, there has never been a significant inherent benefit to participating in it. Over time, people came to realize that even if you ARE interested in pvp, it's often more lucrative to keep your head down and script areas in order to grow first.
Now that pvp provides an inherent benefit and (eventually) an alternate path to character improvement, rewards which are more pvp-oriented (that is, any inscription, mastery, or piece of gear which provides a benefit outside of the generic "running stats") can justify their existence more effectively.
This is obviously just a first step, and I'm sure I will need to tweak the numbers as things play out over the next few months. However, as far as first steps go, it's an important one and it has been a long time coming (the "pvp advancement" tab in my design spreadsheet has been there for quite a while, evolving over the months and years). =)
The original design had a "pvp rank" element to it as well - sort of a pvp level which represented how experienced your character is in pvp combat. This rank was to be used as a statistic, much like a player's experience level, to meet requirements - for example, a piece of gear might have a requirement of "pvp rank 7" in order to be equipped. I've removed that element from the design for now, to keep the base system simple and intuitive; we'll see how things unfold and whether the idea of such a statistic is warranted, or if the system would be better improved in other ways.
'Help rules' updated with rule #14:
This rule a safety catch for the pvp advancement system. The internal structure of the pvp merit system is designed to reward "good" behaviors and to automatically penalize (or complete deny a reward for) "bad" behaviors, such as intentionally killing your friends over and over for credit. However, no system is perfectly free of abuses. Rule #14 is a formal statement that we'll be watching for behavior which attempts to "game the system"; several features have been coded into the system which allows the staff to keep an eye on pvp advancement, and to lock players out of the merit system (or take more severe action) if they attempt to do so.
Tweaked mastery benefits for armor, greater armor, and bless:
These three abilities now provide mastery benefits for fighters as well as casters, but these bonuses are not as strong as those granted to pure magic-users. The base benefits for magic-users have been tweaked slightly as well, to make the bonuses scale more smoothly and aesthetically (and to improve them slightly where warranted).
I definitely noticed the bonus to bless when I logged my healer. Went from 12's to 15's (and 13 hit). I haven't tried the pvp thing, but it sounds like a lot of cool things were introduced!
ReplyDeleteIf a mastery bonus would have occurred except for the % cap, would the same bonus be "channeled" into another mastery? (i.e. Is there an incentive to leave %'s not fully trained?)
ReplyDeleteKudos to you Whim for the new implementation. It is a good direction regards to pvp. But of course there is a lot more work to go and i'm sure we're all anticipating what you have planned.
ReplyDeleteWondering if you still do the Q&As. I've got a question though. Not sure if you're the right person to answer but anyways:
It's for certain there are other Imms. other than yourself(Whim). Are these imms actively working on nodeka? Are they building areas, helping testing, monitoring player stats,etc. What are they doing now to help nodeka?
For Q&A
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that all impairments are virtually 100% effective against skills yet highly diminished against spells? It is extremely rare to see a skill go off and then have another one prevented. You almost always have to "break" the impairment before skills will work.
However with spells, there seems to be just a check to see if they go off with no need to break the impairment. So casting is easily spammed through. In addition that check seems to be dramatically lowered for spells. Of the impairments I have and that get used against me the most, bash appears to be about 60-70% effective, trip 20-30% effective, and channeled anger <10% effective.
I would understand more if say bash was highly effective against spells but poor against skills and trip was the opposite, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There seems to be 2 different mechanics for stopping skills and spells and no parity at all in impairing them.
@Iron,
ReplyDeleteDirect Damage spells used to be seperated much like melee attacks. (If i recall, fireball could hit you up to 5 times, but Nijlo changed it to be seen as it just hitting you once and seeing 1 damage total, even though you are being hit 5 times, hope that makes sense.)
Normally under impairment, spells will still hit but they will hit for much less damage. Only Temple touch is able to prevent damage completely.
Where as skills like hurricane kick, vicious fist, etc as far as i know only hit once and can be nullified by impairment.
I have to disagree with that last point. Hurricane kick and Au-sem-mao(don't know about vicious) both hit multiple times. In fact, from my observation, pretty much nothing hits more than 5 times. This allows you to be "tickled" by fireballs when barrier behest is on, for example(if you had 6 hits, you'd go up to grazing, or whatever the next damage was)
ReplyDeleteWhim: Congratulations on finally being able to unveil your mystery feature. I do wonder though, if perhaps in addition to rank, the amount of merit you get is also affected by the target's kill/death ratio. So, for example, if you kill someone like Iblis(assuming he still has one of the highest kills to deaths), you'd get a ton of merit(eg, 1.5 to twice as much as killing someone with his rank with a much worse ratio), whereas if you smacked the fellow who's been killed a ton(and as I remembered, someone once made a character that would just suicide on folks), you'd get next to no merit(1% of whatever someone of his rank relative to yours). This would give top killers an incentive to stay alive(to avoid giving their killers a huge boost), while giving top victims an incentive to find a suitable target(as well as making them slightly less attractive targets, and a chance to grow). Or something like that. It's an idea in progress.
And i think that Fenulia's post is retarded...unless you want to make the higher ranked pker get a better bonus, i don't see any reason for them to give more "points" upon death...
ReplyDelete-Argh
Fenulia, if I'm not mistaken pks still count in rank - so effectively you are getting more merit when you kill someone who has pked a lot.
ReplyDeleteWith this system though, it could be argued that pks no longer need to play a direct role in rank, seeing as you're growing due to the reward gains anyway and that is reflected in your rank.
All in all though, I love this new system Whim.
-Iblis.
Okay, this one has to do with the "spring cleaning," but not of help files. In quests completed, Mejath there is an error in the paladin master's quests. This quest doesn't require blue crystals anymore, hehe.
ReplyDelete100 - [Humble] Resisting the fire-blue drake lord's taunts, you have stayed to your course and recovered the ten blue crystals he has requested. This required a truly humble character.
Soelle: I remember it was originally shale circlets. I don't know whether that was changed at any point.
ReplyDeleteDoes the bypass counterattacks affect from ruining song bypass the counters from rapture?
ReplyDeleteAlso Whim, is there any way to make it so a class wont receive a pool they dont use as a pk reward? For example, I have received +mana and spirit, both are pools that I dont use.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
@Whim
ReplyDeleteThis probably has already been suggested (or similar) but can the rewards simply grant one of the following:
1) practices (250 - 605 based on player rank)
2) a pool token (gives 50 - 100 points to a pool of the players choice, based on rank.)
3) a sunstone pebble (collecting 5 would allow the player to convert it to a full sunstone)
4) platinum (250-1250 based on mortal tier and rank)
Of course "a pool token" and "a sunstone pebble" are further implementations, but I think it will allow players choice over what they want to improve, similar to if they were simply "running".
-Blitz