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[blulark]

OK, I'll talk about ZC for starters.

We know ZC is one of the most key feature in the AoP. It (should) brings about large co-operative pvp and reward those that contributed (damage, heal, scout, participaton(leech?)). It also should benefit the faction that represent the group.

The problems, however, faced in the ZC system is easy to exploit and generally unrewarding for the losers (and some winners). The point system is the key component in this issue. The fact that matter of point differences absolutely determine the winner and reward makes for some very difficult circumstances. People can just gain points from allies not in the same faction (which I have no idea how to solve).

A large faction going against a smaller one probably will gain less points as there are fewer targets, fewer targets mean less share of the points among the participants due to damage/kills being the only current method of obtaining points. Smaller faction on the other hand is generally underpowered and easily lost, with lack of points and small reward the losing faction in most cases have greater loss than any gain (loss outweighs any benefit, probably). Probably pvp in general most losses outweighs the benifits (includes intrinsic 'I killed someone'/'Tat waz fun'). These are few downfalls of ZC, the point system being unappetizing to even contribute.

There are several others like how easily zones are recaptured and how easily combat gets unbalanced, etc. There are many things but I'm too lazy to discuss further, like cirn0 said, economics side of this game is very very boring (but I guess that's because it gets a little too complicated for one mind to handle).

The few things that might improve ZC in my opinion from reading some of the suggestion is to change the reward system, point system, how point system contributes to victory, how contribution by faction members contribute to overall faction welfare regardless of the victor and how to keep a balanced combat even with unbalanced numbers (there are cases where small numbers win, that's an exception).

1. Clearly the reward system has been improved. I think the bounty system does add a nice touch but only in out-of-zc kind of pvp. The reward system should include not only damage points, but marginalize actual kills (you don't get too much pts for killing players). The system should also consider your reputation with your faction (100k being max reward, <1k being absolute minimal), reputation is a linear scale. Also fame (should be capped at some level) should also be taken into account, this determines the base amount reward in participating in a zc, but is not scaled by the reputation (it is an incremental scale). All points gained by a player should scale with the level of the target and the amount of players in zone. I'll get to player participation next but this is how the reward scales (probably get my meaning if you understand programming):

[function(RewardType) * Points * function(reputationScale, Rep)] + function(fameIncrement, Fame) = Reward(RewardType)

2. Actual points gained in the ZC however should scale with level. A level 6 intending to play ZC would be a liability, most of the time suggestion to go back to pve or consider them as liability is common (sometimes they make good cannon fodder). To deal with this until they reach level 21 I think they should contribute less, points wise when they get hit or die. I'm thinking each player is worth 150 pts, 100 points for all their HP above 0 and 50 points for their deaths. I'm pretty sure its similar or exactly like how current zc system is. That's fine, the main point is the points gained by the actual player from others should be scaled.

So, for levels. If the target is less or equal to level 9 their points is only half of the normal points, ie their total HP is only worth 50pts and deaths only cost 25 pts. From level 9 until level 21 the point gradually scales to the default: 100 pts for total hp and 50 pts for deaths. There is additional features that should be included, such as healing hp also grants pts, the same amount of scale as when losing HP. Also healing HP that are lost also counts towards points, i.e if the enemy is healing while taking damage, the health healed and lost also counts as points. Furthermore if a pc is killed and revived but is killed again, the second kill does not count towards pts (so long as the they're in zc with defib timer), however their HP lost above 0hp is still counted as points.

3. The problem faced when losing a zc is quite heavy especially when you lose gear. Therefore as those that before me mentioned: 30k trader should have all gear available just that the gear is much more expensive if you don't have the right zones. Also you should be able to trade in high component parts for some uncraftable highgrade gear, but it should cost a lot of components.

4. Another way to give reward to losing team is to have trickle down effect (sort of like in economy but actually works this time). Players could opt in for divided reward. That means every single contributor (in or out of zone) and participant (that are dead or alive but still in zone) gets a share of the reward pool. That their points are put into a reward pool with all other participants (those who have 50 pts). Then everyone that is part of that pool will get equal share of the rewards that is generated (minus the remainder that would always appear, probably). Also those who opted in to divide their reward also get one participation token which you can discuss with a faction npc who keeps tabs of them. With enough tokens one can trade them for caps, rare weapons/armors, consumables, rare ammo and even contribute to cutting down prices on every shop vendor and junk trader generates more caps frequently. There is a timelimit to the trader bonus (1-3hrs) but can stack up to one week, stacking shouldn't make stuff cheaper. BTW this isn't my idea. Heard it from someone probably.

Conversely the participation token could be available to anyone in the zc for more than 5 to 10 minutes or those that have >50pts. This allows a win win situation where it gives a consolation prize for losing. Winners should get double the tokens? I do not know. Also there could also be forced sharing where half of the points gained in zc goes into the sharing pool and is divided evenly.

N.B. Not gonna touch on the point system balancing in terms of victory. It's too damn hard. But one day I'll think about it. But maybe you could balance it by phases/'games' like in some sports games.


The next post I will discuss about guns. Probaabblly...

[MARXMAN]

 All points gained by a player should scale with the level of the target and the amount of players in zone.

2. Actual points gained in the ZC however should scale with level. A level 6 intending to play ZC would be a liability; That's fine, the main point is the points gained by the actual player from others should be scaled.


 30k trader should have all gear available just that the gear is much more expensive if you don't have the right zones.

Not to stroke your e-peen, but this is the most constructive post on ZC I've read.

Many of these changes would be much welcomed.

[paragon]

Reputation.
IMO Reputation system in current state is not worth it to be considered as ZC reward modifier. Why pay more for those who run around and donate relics? Only if you want to withdraw reputation over time and make people scavenge for relics regularly... Or withdraw reputation for being killed by a player? But, anyway, not in the current state.

What's the problem with getting points for killing revived?

4. I don't mind people I play with get points for my kills (as they are doing work done), but there are tons of randoms which will get some points for couple of shots but will be harmful in whole, in the same time looting while my team is fighting. If you want us to share with them even points.... I'm afraid it's easier just to kill them in front.
Although if points shared only between your alive squad members in the zone... I would probably agree. But it will make us to avoid adding any randoms in the squad.

> amount of players in zone
Same. I would probably prefer doing ZC with 6 people in my VoiP than with +6 randoms... killing my randoms on the way to zone, so they don't steal points same they do with loot.

[blulark]

Maybe have to option to share between players only in your squad? Since squads are strictly controlled by players sharing reward within a squad might be better probably? However tokens I think is still a must, only because it gives something more than just xp and rep.

Also on the side note about killing revived for points. You do have a point. There should be risks to reviving team mates and that is possibly giving more points to the enemy.

Furthermore your point in that reputation is kind of pointless is right. You can just easily inject rep by adding relics. I don't know which would be better, fame or reputation. Fame will always be constant since factions don't judge you by your fame, however reputation more or less keeps one on his toes since if you do too many team kills you can easily get kicked out, but at the same time its very very easy to gain rep. I now believe fame and reputation should tie in together.

Let's use this for logic, fame is how renowned you are, reputation is how well liked you are by a faction. Fame determines your maximum reputation only because the more you're known the easier it is to be liked. Hence increase in fame means higher reputation cap. Only way you'd gain fame would be through zc (or even possibly general pvp or other activities). You can only gain up to 10k fame, this gives you 100k rep max. At 0 fame (at which you start in) will give you 30k rep max. Also to sort of kill two men with one bullet we could also tie in team kill penalties. If you kill team mates you lose FAME, and fame should be able to go below 0. Going below 0 fame will reduce you're maximum reputation cap (also losing some actual reputation in the process). This would potentially mean you could lose out on 30k rep benefits just because you're infamous (but then there should be more ways to redeem your fame).

I digress. The main point is that fame would tie into reputation. This would mean we need to take away the fame factoring into reward system in zc, since it indirectly affects reward via reputation. However this system is still open for potential abuse. Also if you had the squad sharing system people with high rep/fame might exclude other members with rep/fame for they might be leeching off their benefits. This may still encourage zc since main way to gain fame would be through zc.

Another note, I still have no idea how on earth one would fix the point system though. Large groups tend to easily over power small groups. This is due to their higher general damage output and sheer number makes their alpha damage (initial volley/damage output) very very high. This tends to kill players very easily and losing 1 man in a small group is much more costly than a 30 man group losing 1 man (unless that man was a squad booster).

Probably the best way to address the issue would be to make it more painful to lose 1 man in a large group than in a small group in terms of points. That is, large groups, some one on your group gets killed it costs you're group points scaled proportional to the smallest group present. However those that killed or dealt damage will still get the standard scaled personal points that is independent of the faction points. This system however may belittle damage dealt as damage should not be scaled, since it becomes the sort of thing where you snipe or sneak attack and just run away and hide. The system will force people to kill which will matter much more (loss of man power means loss of extra damage and hp buffer - sort of like a hp shield for the team).

[paragon]

> If you kill team mates you lose FAME, and fame should be able to go below 0. Going below 0 fame will reduce you're maximum reputation cap (also losing some actual reputation in the process). This would potentially mean you could lose out on 30k rep benefits just because you're infamous (but then there should be more ways to redeem your fame).

Alts, spies, alts. They will troll you cause they don't care about their negative fame... until negative fame does the same thing as negative reputation - throwing you away from faction.
So getting negative fame for team killing and without fame for ZC - you screwed. Sounds cool.

>  That is, large groups, some one on your group gets killed it costs you're group points scaled proportional to the smallest group present.

The only problem, again, that I'd prefer to team kill some of people from my faction to not let them be useless in the ZC on the way. But... not that big problem, I guess, especially along with your fame suggestion.

(Still I don't reject my own ZC suggestions xD)

[John Porno]

From watching many fights, one thing that's very apparent but that most people dont realize is that "skill" is a very important factor. I've seen enough battles where smaller parties beat the bigger ones. Another interesting thing was that first battle last sunday, when BB and family attacked Vtec together but at the end of the fight, Vtec, even though their main force was killed, had way more points simply because they also played better. That a single sneak was able to keep the time is an issue that's on a different page however. I have also joined fights in the range of 15on15 where I myself didnt get a single point of score because the enemy dd not attack the position I was ordered to defend, but we beat the enemy without losing even a single guy.

What I'm trying to say is that the actual performance comes first, and this fonline has a skill ceiling that seems to be a lot higher than the other servers.

On any other fonline server, nobody complains about losing because full loot is part of this game. Now what we do here is to just add caps on both sdies of the equation and suddenly people complain about pvp being too costly and not rewarding enough. While the economy may be fucked in some aspects, it was supposed to simply serve the following purposes:

1: Even without putting any time into the game, everyone that has played for a while should always have access to at least one decent tier 2 weapon to join combat with.
2: Caps should be important and able to buy anything somebody would need for ZC, yet people who barely have any caps at all should still be able to obtain tier 2 gear.

edit: Another thing I should probably mention is that we are going to completly change a lot of the aspects of the game with the next season, which brings changes that make a lot of the current suggestions irrelevant.

[paragon]

Sylvisious wasn't even sneaker (: We got more score for many reasons in that battle: we were defending (shooting first and inflicting more damage than attackers can before they rush in), we were using specific sets of gear for the situation (FLA tanking against flamers, electro shooting against MAs, our mg was alive quite long time, etc), and it's always closely connected (skill and situation, gear, amount of people). So in the end we tried to fight with less numbers but best gear against enemies, but we lost all our gear and didn't get enough score to repay even half of it although enemy didn't lose anything. That's the situation we are trying to change now.

"Skill" is not something we should and did try to balance by our suggestions. We actually trying to make the skill (connected with right tactics, gear, etc) essentially deciding factor on reward instead of, for example, amount of people.

Why loyal players still at this server and not at others? Because we like the system much more than "10 hours farm - 20 mins fight". Why do we whine that we have not enough money for ZC? Because we are trying to get away from the system "10 hours farm - 20 mins fight" as far as we can. It's not suddenly, we just see the best and trying to make it even better.

[John Porno]

The point is, if ZC on average pays for itself, then it would feel like some arena game. Right now, as long as youre not a machinegunner or missing all your hexfiring, the payout should be high enough to pay for stims and ammo, which also is the only thing you have to pay with caps.

[MARXMAN]

The family's personal problem with ZC is comms.  Vtec definitely played better, but you were all in a voip program. I'm not denying you put up a damn good fight, but its pretty expected with such a fragmented faction. Add that to no communications with BB, and you guys had a turkey shoot. With family, every single fucking person I ask to join us on TS says the same thing " Muh Immersion." Its rather frustrating, during Sunday only 3 of the family (including me) were on comms, and there isn't much you can do to stop a zerg rush without communication.

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

That's mainly Komrade. The rest are either just lazy, or use the "don't have microphone" excuse, even through most people in TS just shut up and hear instructions.

I do wish we had a more private corner for Family OGs to talk (trusted people only), we could create our own codes for faster voice and text communication, exchange strategies and hints, all without prying eyes. Maybe a forum group here?

[Komrade]

The family's personal problem with ZC is comms.  Vtec definitely played better, but you were all in a voip program. I'm not denying you put up a damn good fight, but its pretty expected with such a fragmented faction. Add that to no communications with BB, and you guys had a turkey shoot. With family, every single fucking person I ask to join us on TS says the same thing " Muh Immersion." Its rather frustrating, during Sunday only 3 of the family (including me) were on comms, and there isn't much you can do to stop a zerg rush without communication.

That's only me and I have copyrights to that phrase so noone can use it.
And most importantly it's mah immershun , calling it muh immersion is weak but understandable because of copyrights.