Posts made by Tuoni

F2P does not necessarily mean anything bad and it depends a lot of the business model build around that. Huge advantage with F2P is that it lures a lot of more players at least try your product than a B2P game, and why not because it is free to test out. However, F2P is usually linked to P2W because developers needs to get the money from somewhere. In my opinion, the best F2P model would be such which sells just cosmetics in the cash shop and perhaps offers an optional inexpensive subscription with some resonable QoL features.

Anyhow, like mentioned before there is no reason why Dynamight Studios should change the current business model and simply because they need the money from the founder packs in advance for the development of the game. I am personally totally fine even the business model would change later after the release to F2P if that is what it takes to save the game. However, I hope in such situation developers do not forget their founders and perhaps gives them something little extra.

@Gothix said in PvE Planet with PvP:

Good players have it much better in that regard, not being limited by timer on Tartaros. After some time expires, they get marked on map, sure.

But then they can simply leave and problem solved, or if they are organized and grouped up they can stay even longer.

This is what I found about debuffs on Tartaros:

"Travelling to Tartaros is extremely challenging for any Beastman, since not only they lose the buffs they are granted on Arboreus, but also become the target of the hate of Babilis. The Evil God enjoys stacking curses on the poor fellows, who could end up dying just because of them – if they don’t get slayed by Demons, that is.
Unlike Beastmen, Humans are generally tolerated by Babilis, who sees a potential for corruption in them. They aren’t directly penalized like Beastmen, but slowly lose Karma over time, unless they enjoy the protection of another God. Tyros, for instance, grants total immunity from the influence of Babilis – but of course, that comes at a price too. While the dark God is not able to reach their souls, it is more than willing to let its children do the dirty job! That is why, one hour after stepping on the planet, the presence of any protegee of Tyros is made known to all Demons in the area!"

It seams that the notification after one hour is related to the God Tyros and his protection. Beastmen in other hand are treated quite similar what demons are in Arboreus, heavily debuffed.

@Razvan It is true that you cannot never trust all players to behave like normal people and if there is a tiny chance to take advantage of something or there is a loophole which can be used for unintented way, someone will do that.

Good example would be that 30 minutes timer what evil characters can stay in Arboreus. First we could asume that the max radius would be 15 minutes because that demon needs to get back to the portal before time runs out.. right? Wrong! If there is a chance to roam and kill other players who crosses your path it will be done for fun and tears regardless the raid will end up for own death.

Camping is also one very usual method which can be used wrong so many ways and if there will be that player collision.. oh boy. xD

@Yitra I know it is close what developers has planned but still the concreteness is missing, like how the things really goes in practice. It is very easy to say that most of the PvE planet is relatively safe from PvP, invading Arboreus is a group effort and evil characters will be debuffed. That is few years old information and very high level stuff.

@KairosVal First, to be honest, this is very cheap way to handle the gear progression, I get it, it is easy from development point of view when you have only few different gear pieces and you just gamble with the passive stats. Moreover, this creates a situation where there is as much different enchanted gear pieces as much there is enchanters. This can easily lead to situation that the supply does not meet with the demand because there will not be gear pieces available people actually want. Albion Online had (in one point of development) a gear system where the abilities and passives where selected during the crafting. This caused that the markets were filled with products that did not sell. SBI had to change the system so players can freely select the abilities and passives they want to use. I can see that this similar problem will come ahead also in Fractured.

From PvE point of view you can plan in advance what kind of resistances you want for your gear but in PvP that is impossible. You never know what you will face from your opponents. Also those tiers should be in gear and not in enchants.

I can see the possibilities in enchanting system and I found it somewhat interesting. However, crafting physical products is much more appealing than enchanting passives on items. In my opinion items should be the main product and enchanting the nice bonus on top of that and not vice versa. This also made me wonder that is those enchants permanent or can those be changed somehow without loosing resources? What is the return rate of used resources if those enchanted items are salvaged? I can see how this kind of enchanting system works in single player games or in MMOs where is not a player-driven economy in use and the gear is more intended to be personal, but trying to create a working economy with all those variations sounds very hard.

Developers of Albion Online assured that they will not change B2P system to F2P, and hey look what happened later. Albion has been a F2P over a year now and things are going great and they have raised from a niche to one of the most popular MMORPGs. However, we could say that Albion is "F2P" but in practice the gaming experience will be horrible without "optional" monthly subscription a.k.a. premium package. Therefore, it is possible to make that change later and save the game if numbers are dropping too much. However, it is important for Dynamight Studios to get some income now so I would not see F2P as an option at the moment but perhaps after release if the situation demands that.

@humerus said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni To be fair with the economy concern addressed I think that giving up unconsentual PvP on Arb is a great route. Previously I thought that partial PvP is a half-measure to kinda sorta stabilise and counteract the safe resourse influx, but as it turned out it's not true at all and I think that it would be best to only allow dueling on Arboreus, think runescape duel arena kinda deal: set your rules and battle it out.
Although I am too intending to main a human on Syndesia these are my thoughts on the topic.

When I played Runescape there was only full loot PvP in wilderness.

In my opinion, I like the idea that different races has that chance to travel other planets and gather resources from there. I think it is fine that demons and evil characters in general has that opportunity travel to Arboreus. However, the best solution would be that they can only arrive on a specific area which is not much from the whole land mass, that way those inhabitants who do not want to encounter hostile PvP can avoid that 100% if they want to. I am sure there will be those beastmen players as well who can live with that possibility to encounter open world PvP action. Perhaps that certain PvP area has some resource hotspots from where can benefit those bold beastmen as well and not just the invaders. If that 30 minutes radius (hard gap) or 15 minutes (soft gap) feels troublesome to implement right, then the invasion could be limited to a certain continent from where the invaders will not get further and where inhabitants can fast travel with boats. We also have to remember that demons will be heavily debuffed which might make them quite vulnerable and good targets for demon hunters.

I would not take PvP totally out from the PvE planet because then there is no danger for demons, and they can just gather in peace without having any serious threat. So I would implement the PvP content in Arboreus in way that it would be more threat for demons rather than beastmen.

@Yitra said in PvE Planet with PvP:

A lot of thoughts of PvP players why the PvE planet should be altered, is it only me who finds that Ironic?
Arboreus is a PvE planet for good reasons, have you ever tried to keep your fur clean and in good condition, with all that human and demon blood on you? Not to mention the taste if you have to lick it off you.......

Actually if you read the whole discussion there is not much promoting PvP on Arboreus more than what is planned from developers behalf. People are more like trying to figure out how the limited PvP will be implemented. At the moment all we know is very high level stuff and we do not have that much concreteness.

I can admit that I am most likely going to play a human as my main character, however, I am also going to create a beastmen alt for gathering and to play special PvE content what is not available for humans. Perhaps I am not the core audience of Arboreus but maybe nevertheless close enough to make reasonable and objective suggestions.

Anyway, I would actually like to hear from those who are planning to play mainly on Arboreus, how they imagine the PvP should be implemented in the PvE planet? Or is the original plan from devs behalf too much from the beginning and there should not be PvP at all?

@Specter said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni That's not what I meant. If you're selling a "Demon resource" from Tartaros, you don't have to worry that an Arboreus player is able to safely gather "Demon resource" on Arboreus as well because that resource is unique to Tartaros. With each planet having their own unique resources, nobody has to worry about everyone going to Arboreus to farm resources there because it's the safest planet. If someone wants Tartaros resources, they will have no choice but to go to Tartaros to gather it, or alternatively buy it from someone who did. No resource will be strictly better or worse though, just different. With that said, I do expect resources from dangerous areas to be more valuable than from safe areas.

If all resources are different in every planet then there will not be that much (or at all) problems. However, if same resources can be gathered from several planets that will shake the balance of markets. And yeah, I also expect resources from dangerous areas be more valueable.

@Gothix said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni there were posts where some players asked for "less PvP" in Syndesia though.

Don't have the will to search for those posts now, but there were asks for various "player and goods" protective mechanics, and similar.

About Syndesia perhaps but that will be much more complex topic. If we talk about Arboreus and Tartaros, PvE and PvP, in that context PvP players are those who try to influence how Arboreus will be implemeted from PvP point of view. However, typically PvE centric players are not interested how things are going in Tartaros.

If we examine Syndesia, I am sure that there will be huge conversations ahead how the PvP should work there. At this moment it is impossible say how much there will be PvP because we have to wait and see (perhaps even in practice) how penalizing it will be to perform criminal actions. We know the frames for the rules but details are still missing like how much karma hit you take from a one kill, or how restrictive the life of criminal will actually be.

@Gothix said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni said in PvE Planet with PvP:

but rarely PvE players demand less PvP

Are you being serious here? :')

Not with that, but you took that out of the context.

Here is the rest where I was referring:

"..but rarely PvE players demand less PvP in other planets. I do not remember a single post where someone would demand less PvP e.g. in Tartaros but I remember several where people wants more PvP in Arboreus."

There is a reason for this because PvE centric players are fine by that they have a PvE planet where they can live without PvP if they want to, and they do not care what happens e.g. in Tartaros because they do not have a motive to push PvE less PvP there. However, some PvP players enjoys to kill defenseless players and chase down gatherers who do not fight back, and those players will try to promote PvP in Arboreus. Perhaps you are one them?

@humerus Actually I did not think that you were pushing PvP in Arboreus and I guess this happened quite little in this thread anyway. This been more a problem in earlier discussions related to the same topic.

I remember that Syndesia is planned to be the center of trading and I guess most of the resources from Arboreus and Tartaros are transported there by inhabitant or humans. Therefore, it might be more usual way to get the different resources to buy those from Syndesia where demons and beastmen have easier access. However, it can be interesting have that opportunity to go gather those resources by yourself but with a very high risk.

@Gothix said in Looting? Pickpocketing? Or Lock picking & Burglary:

Progression is still progression, regardless of what type it is, older character will always be more versatile / efficient than fresh character.

There isn't any sense in claiming otherwise.

The point of horizontal progression, though, is that power gap between old character and fresh character will not be as large as it would be in vertically progressed game.

No levels, equal base character stats, and limited skill slots in skill bar, will still give a full fresh character, chance against old character, because playing skill will play a significant role here.

In vertically progressed MMO, fresh character would not even have a chance regardless of playing skill.

---

Of course, we are talking about fresh characters here, not fresh players. Fresh players will obviously still have much to learn, so from that fact alone, they will be behind old players, that already learned many tricks.

However, if old, experienced player, creates a fresh alt, he may very well beat many other players (that are using progressed avatars) with his own freshly made alt, purely through his playing skills, and experience.

The above would not be possible in vertically progressed MMO.

Horizontal progression is progression as well but it is less interesting when compared to vertical progression. Also you have to remember that there is not just these two extremes, vertical and horizontal, and there can be any kind of balance between these two. Having a 100% horizontal can be boring as hell less tempting and having 100% vertical will create too much power gap between players. However, having ~ 75% horizontal and ~ 25% vertical progression could be a lot of better already. Creating just small power gaps between players (nothing overpowered), keep the main focus on horizontal, but still offer calm vertical progression so players have more interesting and meaningfull goals to achieve. In addition, horizontal progression is not just a character progression thing because it can have negative impact for crafting, markets and loots as well. Vertical progression offers more longevity because in general it appeals more on people than horizontal.

@Gothix said in PvE Planet with PvP:

there will always be players who will try to "push their own agenda" on "any side".

This happens too much.

PvP players wanting more PvP on Arboreus, and PvE players pushing for less PvP on other two planets.

Usually PvP players wants more PvP Arboreus because they want to kill players who do not want to PvP but rarely PvE players demand less PvP in other planets. I do not remember a single post where someone would demand less PvP e.g. in Tartaros but I remember several where people wants more PvP in Arboreus.

It's simply that part of people do not care for others, are selfish, and you can't expect any better from them.

But we trust that such players will not influence devs away from their vision.

From development point of view it would be much better if people could be as objective as possible and not just push their own agenda. It is important examine the discussed topic from the right audience pov, e.g. now when we are talking about PvP in Arboreus we have to remember that this planet is planned from the beginning to be content for PvE centric players. That is why PvP should not exist at all or it should be very limited. Most important is that those who want to avoid 100% PvP would also have that chance.

@Razvan said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni said in PvE Planet with PvP:

If demons could not travel to Arboreus how they would get access to unique resources or unlock certain abilities which need exploration to other planets?

I think they might not have access to those. I remember some time ago asking a similar thing on discord, and the response was that some content is restricted from demons. Then I asked if I can go demon -> angel -> demon and the answer was not because the angels can't lose karma.

I think they do UNLESS there is happen changes for the original plan. Here is a quote from Feature Spotlight #6. And yeah, angels are a special case an treatet as a permanent good characters.

"ARBOREUS
Arboreus Mood Painting

Arboreus is designed to be the ideal home of PvE lovers. It features large areas accessible only by Beastmen and characters with Good alignment, and a great degree of protection from hostile PvP in the rest of the world. How great is such protection? Let’s go through that together.

First and foremost, travelling to Arboreus is no small feat for a Human or Demon character. It requires good planning and is generally expected to be a group effort. Moreover, and more importantly, things get exponentially more difficult for players of Neutral and Evil alignment, who not only have to work harder to gain access to the planet, but also find it harder to stay.

Indeed, only Humans with Good alignment are allowed to walk the lands of Arboreus for a considerable amount of time – 20/40 real-world hours, thus being able to explore a good portion of the world at once, collecting resources and acquiring knowledge.

If you’re a Human with Neutral alignment, you can also stay for a while – around 5/10 hours, penalized only by a slight stat debuff. However, if you get flagged as Aggressive, you are immediately treated as Evil, suffering all the penalties explained below.

If your character has an Evil alignment and you manage to enter Arboreus, well, now you’re in trouble! The planet itself, pervaded by the primal energy of Elysium, immediately starts fighting to repel you. You become heavily debuffed, and normally pacific creatures turn aggressive against you, seeking you out to rip you apart. Even worse, you are only allowed to stay on Arboreus for half an hour at once, and you are quickly drained of all vital energies if you step into a Good-only area."

If weapons and armors turn out to be flat, bland and easy to obtain, would that make full loot system also really underwhelming? If most of the items you loot from the other players are worthless basic stuff, how that can feel rewarding?

@humerus said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni Now on the ropic of your suggestion. This diagram here is inherintly flawed and contridicts the devs' vision. Don't get me wrong, it's cool but we can't go on that much of a stretch here. It's design is unrealistic: PvE and PvP activities hate to be intertwined, you can't just split those right down the middle. And on top of that having both safe Arb difficulty zones is quite intuitive and plain nescessary: they are both PvP free as they are outside the "gate" radius which makes them safe and the only difference bring the difficulty of the PvE content. And this in turn is called a "difficulty curve" which is a given in any good game.
After all we just get the concept we started with. ':D
PS. I actually find it interesting how you accidentaly "discovered" that, that's cool haha

I do not understand how this conflicts with current vision? If the vision has been that most parts of Arboreus is PvP free but there is still a part where PvP can happen, then we could presume that this happens around the stargates.

Also it would make sense that Arboreus is designed in way that it offers different PvE content for different kind of PvE players.Those who want to live peaceful life without having much risks (from PvP or PvE) can move a far away from more dangerous ares, in my picture to the left. When you start moving from left (safe) to right (hardcore) then environment little by little changes more dangerous and perhaps more rewarding. This also unlocks more trading possibilities. From this kind of world I am sure that all type of PvE players and guilds will found their place.

I think I do not quite understand of your point why this would not work so could you be more precise? This is a very good topic to discuss because there is a very little flesh given around the bones how the map will be implemented and how it takes account different type of PvE players.

@humerus said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@Tuoni Concerning the last paragraph: it works exactly the opposite. Beastmen have the freedom to travel between all 3 planets while demons can only invade Syn during aclipses. I'm guessing that evil demons can't access Arb at allm but I'm not sure.

Nope. Demons can travel to other planets and perhaps even easier than other races. Eclipses are a specific event which happens between Tartaros and Syndesia. If demons could not travel to Arboreus how they would get access to unique resources or unlock certain abilities which need exploration to other planets?

"The prime way to travel to other planets, Stargates require a great deal of group effort to be summoned and don’t last for long. After crossing one, the time you’re allowed to stay on the new planet is limited and varies according to your race, your alignment and your destination. Demons are a notable exception to this rule, having been gifted by Babilis the ability to travel to other worlds more easily to bring terror to the other much hated races. However, the penalties they’ll be subject to are no smaller than those suffered by the other races… and sometimes, actually worse."

@Specter said in PvE Planet with PvP:

@humerus No resources are strictly better or worse, so some people will certainly be looking for resources from Arboreus. Different resources provide different stats to gear, and also different looks to buildings. With that said, since every planet has unique resources, the Demon player who risked his life to obtain a rare resource on Tartaros doesn't have to worry that he's going to get undercut by a Beastman player who got the same resource on Arboreus without risk. Also keep in mind it won't be easy to move resources between planets, certainly not through automated means like NPC trade caravans. (It was mentioned in a recent Q&A on Oxfurd's stream I believe). The difficulty of moving resources between planets will also affect the prices obviously.

But if the same resource can be gathered from both planets then beastman would have advantage? Or do I understand wrong that highlighted sentence or is that "same resource" a typo?

I would also like to address that demons actually have easiest access to all resources because for them it would not be a problem to travel other planets and do some gathering. For Beastmen it would be much more harder because they have to go out of their comfort zone and do something they really dislike. However, is this taken account somehow? Perhaps beastmen has easier access to Tartaros and less debuffs?

Here is one example how Arboreus and it "zones" could work. This picture bases on idea if there would be one huge continent so imagine the map under this picture. If there will be several continents it will be actually much easier to create different kind of regions with different danger levels and rules.

Arboreus landmass could be ~ 83% of PvE and ~ 17% of PvE/PvP.

Arboreus could be distributed to three main dangerous levels: Safe, Mediocre and Hardcore.

It will be also distributed for six smaller "zones" about 16% - 17% each.

• Harcore PvE = ~ 17%
• Hardcore PvE/PvP = ~17%
• Mediocre PvE = ~ 33%
• Safe PvE = ~ 33%

There is no need to have strict borders between zones and those can overlap smoothly.

Colored dots marks landing spots (gates) from other planets and the circles around those the zone of influence where visitors can reach from that specific gate. Perhaps different gates have different values and blue for example has easier access but it also limits the area you have time to explore.

I hope people will not take this as precise suggestion because it is more like a sketch how the Arboreus could be distributed. I tried to take account different kind of player types, and obviously the idea is to offer different kind of PvE players content they are interested.