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Is it a bug or intended?

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Maybe I should give you the benfit of the doubt here but, if intended I think you made another misstep.

Tonight I played VvV to see the changes you made after your last misstep. There were to guilds with 2 players fighting it out and myself alone. Since I was greatly outnumbered I was forced to play the way of the thief. However, (and here is what I hope is a bug) the other guilds where getting occupy points towards winning the game and yet my guild was in the city. This is one of two things it would seem. Either it is a bug, or the Devs have nerfed the stealthing thief.

Should this be an intended change then you have completely overlooked getting new blood into the game. There were two guilds of 2 people and one guild of one who was a stealthing thief. They way it was working there was no way for the stealther to compete. If this continues to work this way there is no way you will get the Trammies to play this game. They will see the Occupy points towards winning the game fly buy while stealing Sigils there is no way for them to compete. They will get frustrated quickly and stop playing. As did I until I have a friend online to fight along side me straight up.

Again I call out to the Devs and implore them to in vision what is really important here. If you want to revive PvP over all you must bring in new blood. Tailor this game of VvV with that end in mind and we all are winners! Yes the hard core pvpers of which may complain to high heaven but, there are players to kill they will still play. It is the new to PvP players you should mainly concern yourself with. They are the future and the only way to truly revive PvP. Please Wake Up!
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
So I just played an uncontested game. In Skara I had time for One alter and 2 sigils for a total of 300 points. Not bad but, with the prices of rewards it would take more than 5 hours play if all matches were uncontested to earn a reward. The second game was in Britian and I had time for 1 Alter and 1 Sigil before the game ended. The third game was in Yew and I had time for 1 Sigil and one Alter before the occupation points ended the game. Only 200 points possible means a minimum of 7.5 hours of game play. If the game is contested then those play times go way up if your a newbie to VvV and are starting with just a thief. Not to mention if the new player is using a thief during a contested game they have no chance because if there is one other guild in the city they lose quickly to the other guild while stealthing. The Stealther has basiclly been completely removed from the game. There is simply no reason to play a thief in a contested game at all unless you have unhidden buddies with you in the city.

Here is my concern. For us to get more people interested in VvV the rewards MUST be greater than what you could earn in Trammel or other non consensual pvp areas. If the rewards are not greater we will not get the new blood we need to revive PvP in UO. Most newbies I would think will start with a thief to dip their toes in so to speak. That option has now been completely removed unless the city is uncontested. Without new blood VvV may well go the way of factions.

The solution? I am sure there are many schools of thought here. In my opinion first you should still give a minimum of 400 points for a Win. This is a win win for all involved as in a contested match you may well earn less that 400 even if you win the game. Make it so your guild must take atleast one Sigil or Alter to qualify for the Win/Victory Silver. As far as the stealthing issue where they did have a slight advantage in the game. You did even the Sigil and Alter points which is reasonable. Although the pvper can still earn silver form kills and the thief can not. That said the best solution I can think of would be to lower the price of Mana Spikes to say 250 silver. In fact I wouldn't mind seeing all of the consumables in VvV dropped in price.

Finally as a note to the Devs. Please make bringing more people into the game of VvV your top priority. Doing this will make this new system a success guarnteed. If you make this system a grind to get the rewards I think your making a huge mistake. This whole concept is a great idea and a wonder addition to UO. Please do it justice!
 

Lore Denin (GL)

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
So I just played an uncontested game. In Skara I had time for One alter and 2 sigils for a total of 300 points. Not bad but, with the prices of rewards it would take more than 5 hours play if all matches were uncontested to earn a reward. The second game was in Britian and I had time for 1 Alter and 1 Sigil before the game ended. The third game was in Yew and I had time for 1 Sigil and one Alter before the occupation points ended the game. Only 200 points possible means a minimum of 7.5 hours of game play. If the game is contested then those play times go way up if your a newbie to VvV and are starting with just a thief. Not to mention if the new player is using a thief during a contested game they have no chance because if there is one other guild in the city they lose quickly to the other guild while stealthing. The Stealther has basiclly been completely removed from the game. There is simply no reason to play a thief in a contested game at all unless you have unhidden buddies with you in the city.

Here is my concern. For us to get more people interested in VvV the rewards MUST be greater than what you could earn in Trammel or other non consensual pvp areas. If the rewards are not greater we will not get the new blood we need to revive PvP in UO. Most newbies I would think will start with a thief to dip their toes in so to speak. That option has now been completely removed unless the city is uncontested. Without new blood VvV may well go the way of factions.

The solution? I am sure there are many schools of thought here. In my opinion first you should still give a minimum of 400 points for a Win. This is a win win for all involved as in a contested match you may well earn less that 400 even if you win the game. Make it so your guild must take atleast one Sigil or Alter to qualify for the Win/Victory Silver. As far as the stealthing issue where they did have a slight advantage in the game. You did even the Sigil and Alter points which is reasonable. Although the pvper can still earn silver form kills and the thief can not. That said the best solution I can think of would be to lower the price of Mana Spikes to say 250 silver. In fact I wouldn't mind seeing all of the consumables in VvV dropped in price.

Finally as a note to the Devs. Please make bringing more people into the game of VvV your top priority. Doing this will make this new system a success guaranteed. If you make this system a grind to get the rewards I think your making a huge mistake. This whole concept is a great idea and a wonder addition to UO. Please do it justice!
Robin you play a thief so in an uncontested battle (you already commenting that occupy time doesn't occur when you are hidden) you can max out your sigils and altars by hiding so the occupation timer (game) doesn't end.

Also in your first scenerio you can gain occupy time when other guilds are fighting by moving to an area they are not engaged and not be in hiding. If they are pre-occupied with Altars and fighting each other, as a lone thief, you can steal and return sigils while visible and only hide if they approach. A skilled lone thief can win even when 4 others are engaged in the battle. It just takes some skill and little strategy and skill.

-Lore's Player
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Robin you play a thief so in an uncontested battle (you already commenting that occupy time doesn't occur when you are hidden) you can max out your sigils and altars by hiding so the occupation timer (game) doesn't end.

Also in your first scenerio you can gain occupy time when other guilds are fighting by moving to an area they are not engaged and not be in hiding. If they are pre-occupied with Altars and fighting each other, as a lone thief, you can steal and return sigils while visible and only hide if they approach. A skilled lone thief can win even when 4 others are engaged in the battle. It just takes some skill and little strategy and skill.

-Lore's Player
You miss my whole point. My point is not for me but, for the new blood we hope to bring into the game. If a thief is trying to play contested against another guild he may not stealth at all or the victory points simply roll by him and he has no chance. I am really not speaking for myself here as I like both roles of pvp an thief. But, more so I speak of the trammie that wants to give it a try. Now way will he continue to play the game in it's current ruleset. For one against another guild they can not compete as a thief anymore and two we should ask ourselves are the rewards worth the playtime to get them? For us to get new blood the rewards must be precieved by the new to pvp players as wortht he risk for the reward. Right now I think we are failing in that regard.
 

Lore Denin (GL)

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
You miss my whole point. My point is not for me but, for the new blood we hope to bring into the game. If a thief is trying to play contested against another guild he may not stealth at all or the victory points simply roll by him and he has no chance. I am really not speaking for myself here as I like both roles of pvp an thief. But, more so I speak of the trammie that wants to give it a try. Now way will he continue to play the game in it's current ruleset. For one against another guild they can not compete as a thief anymore and two we should ask ourselves are the rewards worth the playtime to get them? For us to get new blood the rewards must be precieved by the new to pvp players as wortht he risk for the reward. Right now I think we are failing in that regard.
I understand what you are saying about rewards but I disagree. no reward will be enough because its fininte. Once you have them or achieve them the goal is achieved and thus ends your time in VvV because its no longer "worth" it. The artifacts are plenty powerful enough as are the rewards. The only thing I would add would be guild rewards and those would be primarily deco for guild halls etc. [When you hit 10k in silver you can choose to donate to guild rather then claim a reward yourself, guild rewards would be from 20k to 100k silver.]

This has been debated for ages in factions and always rewards have not been a long term answer. They provide a burst of activity that slows to a trickle with achievement of those goals. Dev's have toyed with moonbound, super expensive to obtain, faster decaying items to provice more incentive to continue participating but all those measures continue to fail.... either they are not strict enough or its to hard to maintain and no longer worth the effort.

The one constant from the player side has always been expanding on the town control aspects of factions. VvV is fighting for control of towns, lets find a way to let players win and take control. I am not talking about buffs and bonus's but actual things like disabling the guardzones or increasing how strict they are against Vice or Virtue players, lowering prices or raising them - not selling to the opposite faction, disabling the moongate to all but your faction (Vice, Virtue) etc etc.

I am well known for taking those less experienced in pvp or fel in general and preparaing them and guiding them into Felucca. I am training a group right now for VvV that to this point in their playing haven't done much on the Fel side. If anyone wants to learn how to be an effective thief or fight against other players they are welcome to work with us on Origin. We are a role-play guild so we have so we only work and train with people who are "good".

Things were to easy for stealthing characters initially and giving any group an over powered template isn't a good way to get them involved, they usually leave once its balanced. Thus we see a mass exodus of thieves that just wanted to hide out. A quality thief will be very effective even with changes and new thieves can and will learn how to do so.

-Lore's Player
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
I understand what you are saying about rewards but I disagree. no reward will be enough because its fininte. Once you have them or achieve them the goal is achieved and thus ends your time in VvV because its no longer "worth" it. The artifacts are plenty powerful enough as are the rewards. The only thing I would add would be guild rewards and those would be primarily deco for guild halls etc. [When you hit 10k in silver you can choose to donate to guild rather then claim a reward yourself, guild rewards would be from 20k to 100k silver.]

This has been debated for ages in factions and always rewards have not been a long term answer. They provide a burst of activity that slows to a trickle with achievement of those goals. Dev's have toyed with moonbound, super expensive to obtain, faster decaying items to provice more incentive to continue participating but all those measures continue to fail.... either they are not strict enough or its to hard to maintain and no longer worth the effort.

The one constant from the player side has always been expanding on the town control aspects of factions. VvV is fighting for control of towns, lets find a way to let players win and take control. I am not talking about buffs and bonus's but actual things like disabling the guardzones or increasing how strict they are against Vice or Virtue players, lowering prices or raising them - not selling to the opposite faction, disabling the moongate to all but your faction (Vice, Virtue) etc etc.

I am well known for taking those less experienced in pvp or fel in general and preparaing them and guiding them into Felucca. I am training a group right now for VvV that to this point in their playing haven't done much on the Fel side. If anyone wants to learn how to be an effective thief or fight against other players they are welcome to work with us on Origin. We are a role-play guild so we have so we only work and train with people who are "good".

Things were to easy for stealthing characters initially and giving any group an over powered template isn't a good way to get them involved, they usually leave once its balanced. Thus we see a mass exodus of thieves that just wanted to hide out. A quality thief will be very effective even with changes and new thieves can and will learn how to do so.

-Lore's Player
Lore you realize that a thief can no longer stealth and earn occupy points towards a win right. They must remain in the open. I too am training a group to participate in VvV. With the complete destruction of the stealther several have decided it is not worth it. Why not just lower the cost of mana spikes to help nerf the stealther. As of now that role is gone. And you watch the new blood we have seen is going to go away and not return.
 

Vexxed

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Why are we not seeing Dev feedback here? I think this is really important!
Umm... Because HIDING doesn't promote PvP & they JUST made this change recently and intentionally. I personally think that bringing in NEW blood to PvP is much more likely to happen if newbies can actually see how fun a good fight is. (This means NOT a bunch of theives sitting around hidden).....
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Umm... Because HIDING doesn't promote PvP & they JUST made this change recently and intentionally. I personally think that bringing in NEW blood to PvP is much more likely to happen if newbies can actually see how fun a good fight is. (This means NOT a bunch of theives sitting around hidden).....
Don't kid yourself. The players that are not used to combat with 60 million in gold of equipment will not play this game. You get some in there with the thief role and you will have some then jump in on the combat role too. Here is the truth. When this started I was seeing new blood. Since the changes that is all gone. The new blood has been nerfed.
 

Kyronix

UO Designer
VIP
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Maybe I should give you the benfit of the doubt here but, if intended I think you made another misstep.

Tonight I played VvV to see the changes you made after your last misstep. There were to guilds with 2 players fighting it out and myself alone. Since I was greatly outnumbered I was forced to play the way of the thief. However, (and here is what I hope is a bug) the other guilds where getting occupy points towards winning the game and yet my guild was in the city. This is one of two things it would seem. Either it is a bug, or the Devs have nerfed the stealthing thief.

Should this be an intended change then you have completely overlooked getting new blood into the game. There were two guilds of 2 people and one guild of one who was a stealthing thief. They way it was working there was no way for the stealther to compete. If this continues to work this way there is no way you will get the Trammies to play this game. They will see the Occupy points towards winning the game fly buy while stealing Sigils there is no way for them to compete. They will get frustrated quickly and stop playing. As did I until I have a friend online to fight along side me straight up.

Again I call out to the Devs and implore them to in vision what is really important here. If you want to revive PvP over all you must bring in new blood. Tailor this game of VvV with that end in mind and we all are winners! Yes the hard core pvpers of which may complain to high heaven but, there are players to kill they will still play. It is the new to PvP players you should mainly concern yourself with. They are the future and the only way to truly revive PvP. Please Wake Up!
The match point while hidden change was done because at it's core, one of the major design fundamentals of VvV is to promote combat encounters. Given that occupation points were awarded very fast, the optimal strategy for winning was based around hiding (and not having a combat encounter). With this change, the optimal strategy is refocused to encouraging those combat encounters either via the altars or slaying your enemies to be the only guild occupying (read: alive and unhidden) the city.
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
The match point while hidden change was done because at it's core, one of the major design fundamentals of VvV is to promote combat encounters. Given that occupation points were awarded very fast, the optimal strategy for winning was based around hiding (and not having a combat encounter). With this change, the optimal strategy is refocused to encouraging those combat encounters either via the altars or slaying your enemies to be the only guild occupying (read: alive and unhidden) the city.[/QUO
The match point while hidden change was done because at it's core, one of the major design fundamentals of VvV is to promote combat encounters. Given that occupation points were awarded very fast, the optimal strategy for winning was based around hiding (and not having a combat encounter). With this change, the optimal strategy is refocused to encouraging those combat encounters either via the altars or slaying your enemies to be the only guild occupying (read: alive and unhidden) the city.
No however, you have taken the thief out of the game completely. I had several trammites willing to get involved in the game of VvV by building thives to start with. It is likely I would have gotten them to eventually make combat chars once they got their feet wet. They are now not wanting to continue building and the 2 that had built thieves no longer want to play. I suggest again that the best way to solver that problem is with the mana spike and turn it into a game of cat and mouse.

Making the cost of them around 100 silver should solve your stealther problem and create the combat encounters you are looking for. Not to mention the guilds on Pac had become quite good at hunting the thieves without the mana spikes. Was an awesome game of cat and mouse even without the mana spikes. That is all gone now.

Finally I think dropping the pricing on all VvV consumables would be a great idea. Especially the anti para pots. One of the main tatics I have seen against a dexxer is a para/energy field combo. It almost gets too expensive to keep up with that at 500 silver per 10 pots.

Again thanks for responding
 

Robin_of_Moxy

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
So the choice is out there. A bigger pool of people with which to play, or more grind. Because what the devs won't be doing is handing out points and banners and ten point pinks for free. That is as right as it is obvious. I think the challenge to them is to find some balance between, work, time, challenge and reward. I don't know if there is some metric that can be used to balance the small shards vs the large shards, like looking at total number of VvV players logged in on any given shard and awarding points on a scale in that fashion. But I will say this, again. The vast majority of people are not going to put hours and hours in to make no gold, and receive no other real benefit. If on my little shard I can make 100 to 150 points wasting my time as a sitting duck on an alter when I could be doing Narvey or Lady Mel, again, or spawning, then I would consider the time well spent.
This is exactly what I am saying! Right now the game of VvV falls short of this. And when you take into account the stealthers have been removed from the game it is even more broken. Food for thought Devs (If there are more people to kill the hard core pvpers will come no matter the format of the game.) If the game of VvV is not catered to bringing more people to Fel then I think we failed in what is needed to revive pvp.
 
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