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A Mechanic That Welcomes Defeat


Oddfella

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Many times in MMO's players become discouraged at continuing to play when they find themselves on the losing end of a war. The mechanic I suggest is to hopefully help encourage new players who don't have much PVP experience in this type of game, to continue playing despite being constantly beaten by more experienced players.

 

I call the mechanic 'Toughness' and I've literally ripped it off a game called Kenshi. Toughness is the stat you need to level in order to withstand attacks, reduce bleeding and decrease the time you're knocked out.

 

In DU, this could be translated into a mental attribute. The more damage, knocks and losses you suffered from in combat, the sharper your character becomes in the cockpit. This temporarily allows for a slight speed increase, a more intuitive sense of when to react, slight fuel efficiency increase, slightly better chance of hitting the target, stronger resistance to in-flight symptoms such as dizziness, motion sickness due to high speed flying, rotating, etc.

 

Of course we could just go the easy response and say 'git gud' but that doesn't help to solve the fundamental problem of players leaving because they keep losing.

 

The idea behind this thread is not to hope the devs take this mechanic into consideration, because this suggestion can be easily exploited, but more to begin a discussion on how to help encourage new players to start or continue playing despite being surrounded by people 'of higher levels'. Then everybody wins. The core player base sees a more lively world, the devs get more money and new players don't feel so daunted at the hopelessness when there are mechanics that give them some degree of advantages in a fight.

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So.....when we tell them to git gud and they still lose then they didn't follow that advice ?

 

On a more serious note:

Since there are no levels in DU nor classes, newbros always have a chance. Ingame skill levels work like in eve: you just get a bonus on a certain activity. This may range from 5 to 500% (numbers don't matter here). So a newbro can still help in a fight because he's actually viable, only less effective. If you just compare it to eve (only other game I played with a time based skill system) a newbro can do LOTS of things in a gang. He can forward scout, act as decoy, just keep off the grid for a while and come in late to kill/hold stragglers, bump enemies to hinder them from jumping and so on. Every player can do something and since DU uses a tab Target system, he can learn to use that to his advantage. Which is basically saying git gud xD

 

I don't really see a reason why to apply such things nor HOW you would even do that. And I fail to see how it's "unfair" to newbros if a veteran who played for 5 years has an advantage. Or how that might hold the newkid off from doing pvp in the first place 

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As you said, this idea opens too much space for exploits. PvP players would organize themselves to have the most toughness possible, defeating each other in friendly training.

 

The only way to deal with the fact that there will be powerful and weak characters (because we need this, it creates a lively society...) is to enforce the inter-dependencies between all players. If industrious and carebear transporters players are necessary to PvP core game, they will be protected and encouraged to continue their business. 

 

In the opposite, if a player can be powerful AND autonomous, it's like Homelander in The Boys, he can do what he wants for no particular reason. ?

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How would "Toughness" help a new player survive ?

 

The attribute is increased by taking damage in combat, so a "vet" will have many times the toughness rating of a newbro, which will make them that much harder to kill. It may well result in a worse outcome for the newbro overall...

 

It works in Kenshi, because your units become more effective over time as their Toughness increases, but the NPC's don't get the same resistance boost. So your units get better, but the NPC's you're fighting don't evolve in parallel (as other players would in a PVP-based MMO).

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I don't like the idea. This may be fun mechanics for solo action fighting, but not for space game where combat has more tactical elements. 

If you take damage with your space ship - logically that it's components are damaged therefore work worse. I would understand if at some point your speed will decrease, you won't have initial agility and acceleration, part of weapons won't shoot anymore and resists would just decrease. 

I understand if stats don't change just for making combat a bit more fun-friendly and not that hardcore. 

But I cannot find any explanations why your ship should operate better when it's damaged and nearly destroyed. 

 

Old players should have advantage, in other case there is no sense in playing and learning skills. 

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On 8/16/2019 at 5:26 PM, Lethys said:

So.....when we tell them to git gud and they still lose then they didn't follow that advice ?

 

On a more serious note:

Since there are no levels in DU nor classes, newbros always have a chance. Ingame skill levels work like in eve: you just get a bonus on a certain activity. This may range from 5 to 500% (numbers don't matter here). So a newbro can still help in a fight because he's actually viable, only less effective. If you just compare it to eve (only other game I played with a time based skill system) a newbro can do LOTS of things in a gang. He can forward scout, act as decoy, just keep off the grid for a while and come in late to kill/hold stragglers, bump enemies to hinder them from jumping and so on. Every player can do something and since DU uses a tab Target system, he can learn to use that to his advantage. Which is basically saying git gud xD

 

I don't really see a reason why to apply such things nor HOW you would even do that. And I fail to see how it's "unfair" to newbros if a veteran who played for 5 years has an advantage. Or how that might hold the newkid off from doing pvp in the first place 

 

That's a very promising system. 

 

I should clarify that I didn't mean for my comments to say that it's unfair veterans have an advantage over newbies. I meant that DU could eventually become so daunting that newbies feel very little hope, which I've seen in well-established MMO's. But the system you described there seems to help alleviate that possible issue.

 

I feel that I've also very poorly explained my intention of this post. I threw out an idea, a faulty one, that doesn't discourage newbies from playing when they're constantly getting pummelled. With Kenshi, you welcome the pummelling, the humiliating defeats and the enslaving because it improves your characters stats in the long run. That was the principle, to benefit from defeat. To welcome it. Other than the benefit being learning from mistakes.

 

Realistically, there probably isn't a mechanic that improves your stats the harder you're defeated without being exploited. MMO's just have to rely on there being a wide variety of things to do to cater for as many people as possible and the community to encourage new players to continue playing when things are bleak. As well as the current system whereby there are many different ways to fight and assist in a combat situation.

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Nah, m8, you explained it perfectly; and it is a good intention.

I would like to add that NQ, in their game design and vision, always somewhere where beaten players can retreat. The beginning zone, the safe moons and the shield bubble for your claimed territory.

Either you like PvP, or you don't. Being good or bad at PvP really doesn't say anything about how willing people are to PvP or their usefulness. If a player gets "beaten" to the extent of not wanting to partake in PvP anymore, that player can always fall back to the relative safety of his/her supposed protected base, or the absolute safety of the safe zones.

The mechanics, resources and ordeal needed to take down other peoples territory claims and bases therein is a deterrent from knocking people out of the game too abruptly.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/16/2019 at 11:45 AM, Oddfella said:

Many times in MMO's players become discouraged at continuing to play when they find themselves on the losing end of a war. The mechanic I suggest is to hopefully help encourage new players who don't have much PVP experience in this type of game, to continue playing despite being constantly beaten by more experienced players.

 

I call the mechanic 'Toughness' and I've literally ripped it off a game called Kenshi. Toughness is the stat you need to level in order to withstand attacks, reduce bleeding and decrease the time you're knocked out.

 

In DU, this could be translated into a mental attribute. The more damage, knocks and losses you suffered from in combat, the sharper your character becomes in the cockpit. This temporarily allows for a slight speed increase, a more intuitive sense of when to react, slight fuel efficiency increase, slightly better chance of hitting the target, stronger resistance to in-flight symptoms such as dizziness, motion sickness due to high speed flying, rotating, etc.

 

Of course we could just go the easy response and say 'git gud' but that doesn't help to solve the fundamental problem of players leaving because they keep losing.

 

The idea behind this thread is not to hope the devs take this mechanic into consideration, because this suggestion can be easily exploited, but more to begin a discussion on how to help encourage new players to start or continue playing despite being surrounded by people 'of higher levels'. Then everybody wins. The core player base sees a more lively world, the devs get more money and new players don't feel so daunted at the hopelessness when there are mechanics that give them some degree of advantages in a fight.

I mean Eve has this happen all the time, an alliance or large entity loses a war they end up having players drop out and be absorbed by other organizations. I also believe that people grossly underestimate the power of newbros in pvp. Here say lore,  Goons was an entity that got crapped on by a veteran alliance of another organization called Bob and every fight they would get massacred. But the catch is these newbros were flying less expensive ships and with everyone can make an impact attitude you can overwhelm vet's with their more expensive ships with overwhelming numbers.

 

You are also assuming that veteran outfits aren't going to try real hard to recruit newbros and try to attack them. The reality, from what I have seen in the videos,  a large entity it would behoove them to get as many bodies as possible. The scale of these projects for anything large like a station is at least going to require hundreds of people. I am unsure if any people from Eve coming into this game would be to organize at this level right off the bat. 

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Another factor is that newbros in DU can be more effective than newbros in Eve, since I don't think there's a limit on what you can fly in DU.  Also I believe that weapons will require crew, at least on alarger vessel, and manning a gun on a battleship or flying a small fighter or gunship from a carrier to target specific weapons systems on an enemy battleship or dreadnought would be a great and helpful activity for newbros joining an established group once the game is in full swing.

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