The first step before considering combat malus or forced “even” fights in certain areas would be to mechanically register alliances. Not doing so makes it ripe for abuse.
The largest problem I have with combat malus as proposed here is that it actually discourages new players from fighting as the main hitters would be the experienced PvPer with the favoured class. Cause if I get x players I sure am going to stack my deck as powerful as possible.
The Combat Ranking system is broken and gameable anyway. So I give it 0 credence, as do most anyone that cares about combat in the first place.
A lot of things are relied on, artifacts, FOCUS affs for curing, etc...and balanced around as though it was the norm, instead of complimentary items meant to make combat easier and grant an edge. Group combat became the sole focus, resulting in every Org and class to get watered down till they had ONE real kill strategy shared by all, and synergy should focus only towards that, despite then work put in to cripple each class in turn to prevent them getting to that point easily due to 'it being too strong in group combat' when the level intended made it viable for solo...resulting in entire orgs having NO means to getting a kill at all. With whatever alternative methods to other kill routes made getting canceled out by the latest shiny Wonderitem or artifact, people told legitimately that they have no viable alternatives than to aim for that one shared route because 'lol group combat is the ONLY combat, stfu with duels, solo or getting isolated from your group and having to fend for yourself' talk that Envoys ended up being towards the end (and still are in a number of comments being made, acting like classes are balanced as-is despite being well established they are not and should NOT have to be 'balanced' with new changes to maintain them right where they are now)...
This has driven a lot of people from the game in general, directly in the case of combatants, and indirectly in the case of those that don't like fighting, but hate seeing their org getting trounced on or turned into victims due to inability to fight back, even if they wanted to. So a target malus might help band-aid the issue a bit...but long term won't do much but prolong the continued downward slope of things.
The number of times I've gotten into combat, and people have whined...not without valid reason either, sadly, so little could be done to call them out for it...that we just lacked a viable kill route across an entire group of us save for one or two of our numbers, even when we outnumbered the opposing force whose mechanical skills were overtuned to vastly outperform us. When it's better to just not engage than to be instantly locked down, unable to escape, unable to hinder back, and the rest of your group are helpless to do much even when NOT targeted because their skills just don't work on a 1v1 basis therefore cannot do anything when key members of their group are taken out...you can see how this just worsens morale. And in a game...that equates to people quitting, and not bothering anymore. Other, arguably better, games exist out there...and such focuses over the years leading to where we are now, just has made such a prospect so damned attractive even to long time, diehard pillars of the game's community.
Targeting malus? Honestly wouldn't be, and shouldn't ever be required. The fact that it can be suggested, AND has merit...is a sorry symptom of the approach that has been taken for the last few years now. I want to fix this, and I constantly push for it to BE fixed, others have as well, many have quit in frustration over certain individuals, I shall not name, roadblocking every move at every turn to do so, wanting the sole advantage instead of balance...but at this point, what can you do?
I teach as best I can, encourage and jump in to help raid defenses, what Domoths happen that wouldn't just be a slaughter for those I'd lead or join with, jump at villages and wildnodes even when outnumbered just to get swarmed, and keep doing what I can. But there is a limit. Ask any novice though, I do NOT show them the slightest sign of negative feelings about the situations, though I try to be realistic...an upward battle ahead shows the hint at promise for their own potential to shine, depending on luck and the situation. But the way things and people are, it really doesn't help the cause.
That said...Warriors at least once had a targeting malus system instated back when Deepwounds was a far more effective system than the static, alien design it is now. Multiple Warriors hitting the same person and same bodypart, got diminishing returns...preventing say, 4+ warriors all striking head and insta beheading the target in one combined balance. Wouldn't work with how Warriors are now, however doing such a system where damage, affliction application, mana/ego drains all done on the same target within a set amount of time consecutively all had diminished returns...
Maybe not so much the pure damage route (lol Vitality and Illself), but the rest absolutely. Prevent a Monk, a Bard, and a Guardian just piling on affs till the target is greenlocked almost immediately, proned and stunned so unable to do anything even if they weren't already greenlocked...prevent a group mass draining the targets mana for insta toading, or ego for the same to EternalSleep...such a system would be rather intensive on the coding resources required, but could be designed.
Issue again though, remains that combat in general being unbalanced is still at the core of the issue. The above would literally just remove the last Org to have strong skills even in groups from doing much of anything either. Balancing classes to be effective in combat on their own, THEN worry about group synergy beyond obvious 'omg' moments like Succumb, Aeon+stun+aurics+monk/guardian aff outputs, etc...would still be the better route to focus on. But a general cooldown to things done in battle to a single target, may help in the short term.
Group combat was an organized business, people actually trained, planned, and worked together to make combinations that were so good, they got nerfed. As time went on, more and more nerfs kept hitting, and now we're at where we are.
That is sort of how the game is currently right now. Group combat is an organised business the side is training planning and working together to make sure their skills are timed with each other and that their afflictions overlap for the most impactful hits in group combat.
No amount of skill, artifacts, anything is going to keep you standing and fighting when you are the target of multiple people working as an assembly line. When Mooks 1, 2, and 3 are told to siphon mana and Killer 1 is told to insta kill ... you begin to see what I'm talking about.
I think you meant to quote this, because group combat is exactly that. Because what you quoted is no where in this game, unless of course, we think Mooks 1, 2, and 3 siphoning mana/ego and Killer 1 doing an insta is considered "trained, planned, and practiced".
No amount of skill, artifacts, anything is going to keep you standing and fighting when you are the target of multiple people working as an assembly line. When Mooks 1, 2, and 3 are told to siphon mana and Killer 1 is told to insta kill ... you begin to see what I'm talking about.
I think you meant to quote this, because group combat is exactly that. Because what you quoted is no where in this game, unless of course, we think Mooks 1, 2, and 3 siphoning mana/ego and Killer 1 doing an insta is considered "trained, planned, and practiced".
Oh no I didn't quote that because its sort of wrong a bit. While I do agree that if you have three unhindered people focusing on you and you stand there and do nothing yes you will die. But if you defend and move correctly you can stay alive.
So you mean, exactly the scenario and situation that happens in every combat situation? You have such a population boon that you easily outnumber 3 to 1 in most engagements. Of course you're going to have unhindered individuals. Who sits there and orders their group, "Fan out! Hinder ALL THE PEOPLE!"? You call a target and go for them. Also, you missed the part where I stated something else in my quote...again. No amount of skill, artifacts, anything is going to keep you standing and fighting when you are the target of multiple people working as an assembly line. Your 'ideas' of just move correctly is flawed, because whoever happens to be first target (usually someone new) is obliterated in the first few opening seconds.
So you mean, exactly the scenario and situation that happens in every combat situation? You have such a population boon that you easily outnumber 3 to 1 in most engagements. Of course you're going to have unhindered individuals. Who sits there and orders their group, "Fan out! Hinder ALL THE PEOPLE!"? You call a target and go for them. Also, you missed the part where I stated something else in my quote...again. No amount of skill, artifacts, anything is going to keep you standing and fighting when you are the target of multiple people working as an assembly line. Your 'ideas' of just move correctly is flawed, because whoever happens to be first target (usually someone new) is obliterated in the first few opening seconds.
Exactly its very unlikely anyone with any experience is just going to sit there and take it. Most people will move or use their skills to not die.
Something I haven't seen really touched upon in this discussion is the consequence of the goal that systems like these tend to be aiming for: making less tanky people less easy to blitz with numbers.
First, that's a good goal. Being smashed with numbers is rarely anyone's idea of a good time.
The point I'd like to raise is that the opposite becomes the case too: you also make the super tanky highly defensive people tankier as well. This is less desirable, because frankly most of those people are hard enough to kill even with numbers. It is my view that systems like these tend to need to be able to quantify the person's disadvantage somehow, and unfortunately while you can quantify character health/mitigation/etc, its much harder to quantify player experience/reflexes/paranoia (and the factors you can quantify are typically very easily gamed).
I don't have strong feelings either way on a system like this, but think this aspect is something which needs to be considered with any kind of move in that direction. In theory it benefits the majority, but in reality it tends to make the rich get richer.
That's a 8/1 split between the two main alliances! Lets look at domoths. Again, it's currently an 8/1 split. You have to see that something here is very wrong.
Celest is a virtually dead org. Serenwilde seems to have mostly given up on fighting and apparently consist of rpers and shopkeepers who sometimes do influencing to get daily credits. They're literally playing their own self-contained game away from everyone else. Magnagora is pretty game, obviously trying but just as obviously, being kicked in the teeth a lot. Nothing about any of this makes for a healthy game.
This both supports and not supports your stance here. There's a difference between having fewer people and not participating.
Chaos, numbers help, but numbers just don't walk away from it.
Harmony, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Nature, numbers don't necessarily matter here.
Knowledge, numbers don't matter here at all.
Life, numbers matter less here, where numbers do help, they don't have to be conbatants.
Death, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Justice, numbers don't matter here.
Beauty, numbers don't matter here.
War, numbers don't matter here.
So if you remove from your list the ones where numbers don't nearly guarantee a win the list is very different.
The other side could have and has won Chaos, Nature, Knowledge, Life, Justice, Beauty and War.
You can't say the alliance won War because of Numbers. My team with less than an hours prep and very little synergy took second in war.
Harmony and Death could definitely use some kind of shake up. Even if you peaced both events, it could still be gameable by numbers - but instead of harassing via PK, non-runners would just kill all the mobs and/or follow the runner and kill their targets once they're near scoring, etc.
A good first step would be to hide the scores, same as it is done in Life. Force people to make decisions about who they want to slow the progress of without a hard and easy fact check at any given moment.
They could still use something more than that, but I'm not really sure what.
Harmony and Death could definitely use some kind of shake up. Even if you peaced both events, it could still be gameable by numbers - but instead of harassing via PK, non-runners would just kill all the mobs and/or follow the runner and kill their targets once they're near scoring, etc.
A good first step would be to hide the scores, same as it is done in Life. Force people to make decisions about who they want to slow the progress of without a hard and easy fact check at any given moment.
They could still use something more than that, but I'm not really sure what.
Seals should not be reduced to solo events. The entire idea of ascension is a group effort not an individual competition.
Also numbers or no numbers, we can accurately guess which players of the opposition we should worry about and which ones we can safely ignore. We don't really need the scoreboard for that.
That's a 8/1 split between the two main alliances! Lets look at domoths. Again, it's currently an 8/1 split. You have to see that something here is very wrong.
Celest is a virtually dead org. Serenwilde seems to have mostly given up on fighting and apparently consist of rpers and shopkeepers who sometimes do influencing to get daily credits. They're literally playing their own self-contained game away from everyone else. Magnagora is pretty game, obviously trying but just as obviously, being kicked in the teeth a lot. Nothing about any of this makes for a healthy game.
This both supports and not supports your stance here. There's a difference between having fewer people and not participating.
Chaos, numbers help, but numbers just don't walk away from it.
Harmony, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Nature, numbers don't necessarily matter here.
Knowledge, numbers don't matter here at all.
Life, numbers matter less here, where numbers do help, they don't have to be conbatants.
Death, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Justice, numbers don't matter here.
Beauty, numbers don't matter here.
War, numbers don't matter here.
So if you remove from your list the ones where numbers don't nearly guarantee a win the list is very different.
The other side could have and has won Chaos, Nature, Knowledge, Life, Justice, Beauty and War.
You can't say the alliance won War because of Numbers. My team with less than an hours prep and very little synergy took second in war.
Not to be rude, but your logic is flawed. First, the disparity may not be as much in some cases, but let's take March Madness which is a 64 team NCAA basketball tournament. I will give you the number 1 team, and I get the other 63 teams. Would you take the overall number 1 or the field? From 2005-2014 , three of the number 1 overall teams have won out of ten. It's like saying your chances of winning the lottery is the same whether you buy 1 ticket or 1,000. Now, I am not saying that ability doesn't affect this because it does, but to flat out says numbers doesn't matter is false in things like Justice. The number 1 overall team is still better odds than the 64th ranked team.
Justice is 1vs 1 - there is no team. It is down to the person's skill
There is a limit to how skilled one can be at debating, and it is a threshold that almost anyone can reach, given even a passing interest in attempting it. To say that the person who wins any given debate is the most skilled debater is simply false. Yes, those who do well in Justice will be those who put in more effort than most, but the winner won't necessarily be the one who worked the hardest or is the "best" - they are as likely to just be luckier.
So, no, the org that can convince enough people to attend and put in a passing amount of effort into winning will be the one whom the odds favor.
"Chairwoman," Princess Setisoki states, holding up a hand in a gesture for her to stop and returning the cup. "That would be quite inappropriate. One of the males will serve me."
Comments
The largest problem I have with combat malus as proposed here is that it actually discourages new players from fighting as the main hitters would be the experienced PvPer with the favoured class. Cause if I get x players I sure am going to stack my deck as powerful as possible.
A lot of things are relied on, artifacts, FOCUS affs for curing, etc...and balanced around as though it was the norm, instead of complimentary items meant to make combat easier and grant an edge. Group combat became the sole focus, resulting in every Org and class to get watered down till they had ONE real kill strategy shared by all, and synergy should focus only towards that, despite then work put in to cripple each class in turn to prevent them getting to that point easily due to 'it being too strong in group combat' when the level intended made it viable for solo...resulting in entire orgs having NO means to getting a kill at all. With whatever alternative methods to other kill routes made getting canceled out by the latest shiny Wonderitem or artifact, people told legitimately that they have no viable alternatives than to aim for that one shared route because 'lol group combat is the ONLY combat, stfu with duels, solo or getting isolated from your group and having to fend for yourself' talk that Envoys ended up being towards the end (and still are in a number of comments being made, acting like classes are balanced as-is despite being well established they are not and should NOT have to be 'balanced' with new changes to maintain them right where they are now)...
This has driven a lot of people from the game in general, directly in the case of combatants, and indirectly in the case of those that don't like fighting, but hate seeing their org getting trounced on or turned into victims due to inability to fight back, even if they wanted to. So a target malus might help band-aid the issue a bit...but long term won't do much but prolong the continued downward slope of things.
The number of times I've gotten into combat, and people have whined...not without valid reason either, sadly, so little could be done to call them out for it...that we just lacked a viable kill route across an entire group of us save for one or two of our numbers, even when we outnumbered the opposing force whose mechanical skills were overtuned to vastly outperform us. When it's better to just not engage than to be instantly locked down, unable to escape, unable to hinder back, and the rest of your group are helpless to do much even when NOT targeted because their skills just don't work on a 1v1 basis therefore cannot do anything when key members of their group are taken out...you can see how this just worsens morale. And in a game...that equates to people quitting, and not bothering anymore. Other, arguably better, games exist out there...and such focuses over the years leading to where we are now, just has made such a prospect so damned attractive even to long time, diehard pillars of the game's community.
Targeting malus? Honestly wouldn't be, and shouldn't ever be required. The fact that it can be suggested, AND has merit...is a sorry symptom of the approach that has been taken for the last few years now. I want to fix this, and I constantly push for it to BE fixed, others have as well, many have quit in frustration over certain individuals, I shall not name, roadblocking every move at every turn to do so, wanting the sole advantage instead of balance...but at this point, what can you do?
I teach as best I can, encourage and jump in to help raid defenses, what Domoths happen that wouldn't just be a slaughter for those I'd lead or join with, jump at villages and wildnodes even when outnumbered just to get swarmed, and keep doing what I can. But there is a limit. Ask any novice though, I do NOT show them the slightest sign of negative feelings about the situations, though I try to be realistic...an upward battle ahead shows the hint at promise for their own potential to shine, depending on luck and the situation. But the way things and people are, it really doesn't help the cause.
Maybe not so much the pure damage route (lol Vitality and Illself), but the rest absolutely. Prevent a Monk, a Bard, and a Guardian just piling on affs till the target is greenlocked almost immediately, proned and stunned so unable to do anything even if they weren't already greenlocked...prevent a group mass draining the targets mana for insta toading, or ego for the same to EternalSleep...such a system would be rather intensive on the coding resources required, but could be designed.
Issue again though, remains that combat in general being unbalanced is still at the core of the issue. The above would literally just remove the last Org to have strong skills even in groups from doing much of anything either. Balancing classes to be effective in combat on their own, THEN worry about group synergy beyond obvious 'omg' moments like Succumb, Aeon+stun+aurics+monk/guardian aff outputs, etc...would still be the better route to focus on. But a general cooldown to things done in battle to a single target, may help in the short term.
That is sort of how the game is currently right now. Group combat is an organised business the side is training planning and working together to make sure their skills are timed with each other and that their afflictions overlap for the most impactful hits in group combat.
Exactly its very unlikely anyone with any experience is just going to sit there and take it. Most people will move or use their skills to not die.
First, that's a good goal. Being smashed with numbers is rarely anyone's idea of a good time.
The point I'd like to raise is that the opposite becomes the case too: you also make the super tanky highly defensive people tankier as well. This is less desirable, because frankly most of those people are hard enough to kill even with numbers. It is my view that systems like these tend to need to be able to quantify the person's disadvantage somehow, and unfortunately while you can quantify character health/mitigation/etc, its much harder to quantify player experience/reflexes/paranoia (and the factors you can quantify are typically very easily gamed).
I don't have strong feelings either way on a system like this, but think this aspect is something which needs to be considered with any kind of move in that direction. In theory it benefits the majority, but in reality it tends to make the rich get richer.
This both supports and not supports your stance here. There's a difference between having fewer people and not participating.
Chaos, numbers help, but numbers just don't walk away from it.
Harmony, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Nature, numbers don't necessarily matter here.
Knowledge, numbers don't matter here at all.
Life, numbers matter less here, where numbers do help, they don't have to be conbatants.
Death, numbers of fighters definitely matter here.
Justice, numbers don't matter here.
Beauty, numbers don't matter here.
War, numbers don't matter here.
So if you remove from your list the ones where numbers don't nearly guarantee a win the list is very different.
The other side could have and has won Chaos, Nature, Knowledge, Life, Justice, Beauty and War.
You can't say the alliance won War because of Numbers. My team with less than an hours prep and very little synergy took second in war.
A good first step would be to hide the scores, same as it is done in Life. Force people to make decisions about who they want to slow the progress of without a hard and easy fact check at any given moment.
They could still use something more than that, but I'm not really sure what.
Also numbers or no numbers, we can accurately guess which players of the opposition we should worry about and which ones we can safely ignore. We don't really need the scoreboard for that.
Not to be rude, but your logic is flawed. First, the disparity may not be as much in some cases, but let's take March Madness which is a 64 team NCAA basketball tournament. I will give you the number 1 team, and I get the other 63 teams. Would you take the overall number 1 or the field? From 2005-2014 , three of the number 1 overall teams have won out of ten. It's like saying your chances of winning the lottery is the same whether you buy 1 ticket or 1,000. Now, I am not saying that ability doesn't affect this because it does, but to flat out says numbers doesn't matter is false in things like Justice. The number 1 overall team is still better odds than the 64th ranked team.
So, no, the org that can convince enough people to attend and put in a passing amount of effort into winning will be the one whom the odds favor.