PvP Arena modules

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Any player of this type of modules here?

I would like to answer few questions. First, I am, I was scripter on Blood War arena which brought new revolutionary features, this module however failed to drag players attention. I would like to try it again (after I finish all others projects), however not before I understand why BW failed in past.

1 - Why are you playing Antiworld? Its because there is most players?
2 - Did you ever tried Blood War arena? Why you left?
3 - What about BoW?
4 - Would you be willing to download hak packs for this type of module?
5 - What do you consider to be essential for this type of modules?
6 - Would you play any arena which would made major changes to spells/classes each period of time?
7 - Do you want to play further after reaching lvl 40? Or otherwise, do you like the epic items at BoW?
8 - Do you like low levels (10-20) fighting or you prefer epic levels (20-40)?
9 - Do you prefer item crafting or premaded items in shops?

Thanks.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 02 septembre 2010 - 04:42 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Genisys]

               I think you show a great deal of intelligence by admitting that you failed ShaDoOow, but more importantly because your willing to try to achieve different things, also because you admit you have to do something different to change the outcome of the results of your previous effort...

However, you will need to clarify some terminology.. like..

Anti-World & BOW  - some may not be familiar with these, I know I'm not with the first one..

Bastion of War was awesome, because it was exciting constant action, but it's mechanics were slighted towards an unbalance in classes..  A Magic User & Arcane Archer stood side by side and would literally level ALL melee opponents coming at them..  That was the only major flaw I seen with BOW..

I have never played Blood War Arena, so I can't comment on it personally...

PC's detest dying, more than that, they detest dying a lot, if they die a lot, they will start to view something as un-fair, whether they are correct or not, it does NOT matter...

They are the player, just like a businesses customer, the customer is always right..

If a builder can apply that business technique to their modules and actually listen well to the players, they will improve their module ex potentially, if they shun / ignore any criticism, whether constructive or not, then they will suffer, as we have seen countless servers who don't listen, they remain empty..

Veterans will usually tell you what they think, they are great to listen to, because they know quite a few things, and though it's hard as a builder to take criticism, truly, it helps you grow..

I personally love item crafting over shops, any day of the week!

I prefer epic, because low level makes you feel like you have a lot to learn still, no matter if your a veteran player or not, this I feel is a mistake..

I would play an arena module if...

#1) it was balance as close as possible for all classes.. (e.g. game play was fair)
#2) magic spells were not Nerfed to a state of being completely or near worthless..
#3) the balance between weapons & magic users was good...

PVP is a major turn off for many players because they die a lot, and players just don't like dying..

Even in First Person Shooter Games, if you fell over dead every minute, you'd start to think "This Game Sucks!"  sure they could grow their skills and become better, but rather than fight the frustrations, they flat give up and start hating the game...

if combat last 1 - 2 rounds in a PVP module then it's not really balanced, not even remotely..

If combat carries over 5 minutes, then maybe you need to make adjustments..

The best way to test your module is to invite a friend, have a pvp match, and look at the results..
Test different character classes against a wide variety of classes..

Enforce Legal Characters should always be checked in PVP modules..
Player's don't want to face DM / PCs who are uber, it's not correct..

Many players may quickly get fed up with a module if it's not entertaining.  I've said this countless times to many people, "It's your job as a DM to entertain your players, if you can't or won't then you simply won't have players."  You don't have to directly interact with them, but you do have to ensure they are enjoying themselves, and this is mostly where feedback helps A LOT...

You can learn a lot from watching kids play a game, watching my 4 year old play different computer games has shown me many things...

Hope this helped you ShaDoOow, and good luck with your PVP Arena Module...

Cheers

Genisys (Guile)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Genisys, 02 septembre 2010 - 06:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_kenween]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Any player of this type of modules here?

I would like to answer few questions. First, I am, I was scripter on Blood War arena which brought new revolutionary features, this module however failed to drag players attention. I would like to try it again (after I finish all others projects), however not before I understand why BW failed in past.

1 - Why are you playing Antiworld? Its because there is most players?
2 - Did you ever tried Blood War arena? Why you left?
3 - What about BoW?
4 - Would you be willing to download hak packs for this type of module?
5 - What do you consider to be essential for this type of modules?
6 - Would you play any arena which would made major changes to spells/classes each period of time?
7 - Do you want to play further after reaching lvl 40? Or otherwise, do you like the epic items at BoW?
8 - Do you like low levels (10-20) fighting or you prefer epic levels (20-40)?
9 - Do you prefer item crafting or premaded items in shops?

Thanks.

i don't agree with much of what Genisys says. I actually believe that players LIKE DYING when it provides a challenge to survive. I believe player characters LIKE a challenging mod format where it DOES take intelligence and persistence to defeat your opponents. What PCs do not like are rules which are vague and spell/ability changes which are hidden - because this makes it hard for them to figure out how to kill their opponent.

Pvp/Team PvP formats should work well and stably. They should  offer a level playing field and should be kept simple for people to learn. They NEED NOT BE PERFECT in terms of combat balance - but rather should offer an engaging experience. In answer to your specific questions :-

(all of the below are my own personal opinion, humbly so)

1 - Why are you playing Antiworld? Its because there is most players?
I tend to find Antiworld somewhat clunkily scripted (too many action cancels). I think it is popular simply because there is a community of players used to it and not keen to learn a new format. 

2 - Did you ever tried Blood War arena? Why you left?
Nope never tried. Post link to description?

3 - What about BoW?
Tried it a few times. I do not like servers which mix level ranges. I also do not like grinding (takes too long). I am also not terribly keen on local vault servers where your character build cannot easily be taken to another local vault mod.

4 - Would you be willing to download hak packs for this type of module?
No. Hak paks take too long and are subject to unknown bugs.

5 - What do you consider to be essential for this type of modules?
Easy casual simple clear kill rules. Easy to find your opponents and common meeting of masses of players duking it out. Much prefer local vault.

6 - Would you play any arena which would made major changes to spells/classes each period of time?
No. Constant and frequent changing in class skills just makes for horrendous disheartening gameplay.

7 - Do you want to play further after reaching lvl 40? Or otherwise, do you like the epic items at BoW?
No. Level 40 is overpowered and somewhat meaningless. Purists in pvp find most satisfaction at lower levels. At higher levels it is just a slow beat down of high HP. PvP is most enjoyable at around lvl 20.

8 - Do you like low levels (10-20) fighting or you prefer epic levels (20-40)?
Level 20 fixed level.

9 - Do you prefer item crafting or premaded items in shops?
Prefer to bring in our own items from outside. Premade items tend to always suck in looks and abilities. The best pvp is actually had under what used to be known as No Immunities rules. Everyone sticks in as many properties as they can on each item barring  immunities. Everyone also gets to make their own full custom coloured gear.

NWN is a sophisticated game and all a server really needs is just a regular community fo players. Apart from that what makes it enjoyable are custom colours and flair of each individual player build.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par kenween, 03 septembre 2010 - 12:25 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

kenween wrote...

2 - Did you ever tried Blood War arena? Why you left?
Nope never tried. Post link to description?

There isn't description anywhere the BW was shutdown 8months ago, but I try to describe it.

We started with two modes, Capture the Flag and Domination.

CTF at Blood War arena was a bit different over AW's one, player didnt get experience points for bringing flag but 5 points. The score in CTF was number of brought flags.

The Domination was very similar to Unreal domination. There was always one dominatio zone, outside this zone, everything worked normally, +-lvl5 restrictions etc. But if player entered zone, everyone in the zone start to be enemy for him. The time in zone decided winner. IMO this was bad mode, because when high level joined it wasnt very fun, but mostly this situation never happened. The score in DOM was time spent in zone.

Also in both modes players got points and experiences for killing enemies -5 to +5 50-500.

We started at lvl 10 to 40, but after some time we changed it to 20-40. And there was special round system. Each round took 30minutes, but there was evalution three times per round, every 10 minutes. So player didn't had to stay 30minutes in game to get good XP bonuses but both teams get almost the same because we had enabled team switching. Then the score was resetted. At the end of full round every player got special bonus for his personal (killing) score similar to AntiWorld. There was of course top ten sign and special prices for round winner and record sign. Items were crafted by NPC like at Bastions of War. Haste was free like at AntiWorld.

At the end of the Blood War time I added two new modes, team deathmatch and deathmatch, the DeathMatch is what I am most pride of, this wasn't team mode. It was free for all except levels differences. And there were specialities. Player that shed first blood got 500xp, also there was experiences for multiple kills and even for dying, player that died got xp based on lvl difference of killer, if the killer was +5lvl he got 250xp. and so on.

I can't tell you much about spell/class changes because that was domain of other guy that worked on this module with me. But I can tell you that Blood War rules were fully scripted. You could not spam kd, there was timer and until it passed it just wasnt possible, the same with hide. Also we fixed action cancel crash, fast taunting and we changed the most overpowering abilities like:
Devast - double dmg instead of death
Crippling strike, Death attack - duration of str decrease/paralyse was just few rounds

Oh I remember one spell change that was very discussed:
improved invisibility didnt provided 50% concealment but instead the effect didnt went away after attacking, this meat that for anyone without see invisible/TS it was almost impossible to fight with player in ii, but if player had see invisibility, the ii granted no concealment.

Generally speaking we wanted to combine the best from both arenas, but we have failed. Players found us, but didn't stayed. Also in the time we made BW the BoW was still very popular, I don't know where those players left, but surely not to BW. I can run Blood War again with the last version, but I don't believe that anyone would play it anyway so its frostbounded...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 03 septembre 2010 - 12:45 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Genisys]

               Your going to have to be original if you want to win a crowd of veterans over to your module, PVP Arena modules really lack options to be honest about it, here is a stick, go kill those PCs over there...

Players have learned to be more selective, they want quality, when 4,000 players were online on any given Sunday, it was easy to take a slice of the pie, now when the player count is much lower, then it becomes a survival of the fittest for servers, those that offer the most, will get more players.  

Think about it ShaDoOow, if you're trying to create something that's fallen out of favor, can you hope to win players over?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Genisys, 14 septembre 2010 - 02:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Mainly it seems that players playing these types of modules do not going there. (Someone could actually tell that they are mostly 15years old kids - because there is lot of arging and offending via shouts at these modules)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Genisys]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Mainly it seems that players playing these types of modules do not going there. (Someone could actually tell that they are mostly 15years old kids - because there is lot of arging and offending via shouts at these modules)

Exactly...

I think you'd be better served focusing your skills on building a co-operative storyline / party adventure module with good focus on action, this is a very nice module to play on...

I'm not for extremes, like mostly RP or Mostly Action or Mostly Story, but I like good mix of all, without forced gameplay.

As long as the module is balanced, isn't overly inducive of systems (like food / water system or restricted rest system), then I'm more than willing to give any module a try..   

Just my 2 cents ShaDoOow 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Ok Blood War is (temporary?) up again for personal request. Its in arena category, so if there is anyone, who is not satisfy with AW/NWNKnights or BoW, feel free to check it out.