Greets! So I've gathered some things from what I saw when players attempted to play here (from a fresh start / not returning player) and here's what I saw. I hope to fix these issues and would love insight on my suggested fixes. You can also use this as a place to express your dislike for something we have in so we can work on changing it. (T2 leveling rate will get better, promise!)
High levels / Veterans are camping newbies off the server.
- Implement potion/buffs to victims to dissuade prolonged camping
- debuff murderers for prolong camping (slow/weakness/etc)
Ok, I would like to first off say before I suggest a stronger solution to this that buffing/debuffing people based on who they kill is an absolutely atrocious solution. It will simply drive people away from combat by creating an unfun experience.
The thing that people never seem to understand is not only that camping new players isn't something that occurs as often as it is complained about, but the reason that people kill low levels and newer players is because they are
bored. In the last 4 years of Herocraft, if you asked any active PvPers whether they would like to gank new (and I use this term loosely, because it seems people are confusing new with lower (not always low) level) or have a 10v10 teamfight with another town, I can guarantee you each and every one of them would prefer the teamfight.
The issue of new players getting camped stems from the fact that people like PvP, but there aren't other ways to get it. Although I dislike comparing the current map to Bastion, Bastion was hugely successful and I think a comparison fits here. If you were to show up at a town filled with mostly PvEers in Bastion, you would probably get a couple kills, maybe get a decent amount of loot, but in about 20 minutes you can bet your ass another town is sending a full party to come kill you. A lot of the reasons that people killed low levels on other maps is because it would provoke people to come fight; not only would the provokers probably get some decent loot from the town they were raiding, not only would they get to pad their stats a bit, see there name pop up in chat as the whole server got to see you going on a rampage, but you would get
REAL PVP out of it. Onto the actual comparison, the difference between this map and Bastion is that Bastion had a larger and more active playerbase. This means in the simplest of terms that it is a lot easier for people to find PvP themselves, whether it just be showing up at a random town, finding people in the wild, when there are more people playing more consistently initiatives to fight aren't needed, because they're always there. This is something that you've addressed below and that I will also be addressing down below, but the fact of the matter is that you need to recognize when things start to turn south (which you have, and I am very grateful for that) and provide a reason for someone to pick Herocraft over a minigame server. Nine times out of ten, it'll either be because of the community or because of Heroes.
New players are unable to level without being killed.
- Implement a dungeon ticket system to instanced areas with no pvp for SET times (30mins / 1hour) - allowing players to effectively spend currency and RL cash to bypass PVP for only set periods.
- Turn off PVP in some dungeons during boosts. (I like this a little less than an instancing system)
In a similar vein to what I said above, there are a few things that need to be addressed off the bat:
1.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LOW LEVEL PLAYERS AND NEW PLAYERS
The term noob gets thrown around so loosely these days and I think it really clutters up a lot of these debates, especially in game. I've played on this map for probably 3 days in total (would be more but I got banned for 3 days, oops) and I've killed my fair share of people. I am currently a level 56 Beguiler, and I'm only there because of a boost. 75% of my kills came from when I was below level 30, killing people within 10 levels of me or way higher than me, but because my name is more well known than theirs I am accused of killing noobs. This is something that happens with so many of the active PvPers. If someone is a master Ninja, kills 200 people, is an avid PvPer, then switches out to wizard and gets ganked when he's leveling; is that a problem? When is the line drawn for when people should be allowed to fight, and be expected to defend themselves? A lot of the people who complain (mostly in game) are people who have played long enough to know that if you run out into a group of players, they
will kill you. They know that if you go alone to a dungeon which is a PvP hotspot a lot of the time, you
will be killed. It's really not a hard concept to understand, it's just that people are a lot more trigger happy on their complain buttons these days and if they do something that is a completely natural part of the game and lose something, it's clearly an issue that the server has, right11/!/1/
Onto my actual suggestion, I think that the solution to a lot of these issues listed here relies on creating some sort of endgame content. I don't think the right approach is to turn off PvP in certain areas, first because it restricts a very vital part of the Herocraft experience which is the "always watch your back" attitude, babysitting players will make their experience more enjoyable for their first few days, but it will slowly kill off the server because when everyone is being babysitted nobody wants to play anymore. Secondly, I believe a better approach is to encourage PvP in certain areas when a boost is active instead of discouraging it in certain areas. By discouraging it in certain areas, you are essentially just saying "Hey, we know this is an issue but we're not going to deal with it, we're just going to throw in a makeshift solution to keep people from complaining." I understand that sounds a bit aggressive, but adding something like a certain conquest or capture point that is only activated during a boost is something that could really solve more than one problem. There actually is an advantage to ganking players while they're leveling outside of getting that mad ELO, but you can get a lot of souls if you can get a decent amount of kills during a boost. If you just swoop in there and kill a few people while they're dying to pigmen, you get the exhilarating feeling of successfully ganking someone, ELO, and some decent cash. Repeat this a few times over the course of the boost and you get real money out of it. If you switch people's focus to a bigger reward which can be obtained during these boosts, it gives them something to do during these boosts for those that are maxed, so they can get the experience they want without fucking around with the low levels. It should be noted however, that if a system such as this were to be added, people would still gank levelers, and that is
100% OK. It is crucial that people die a few times to players while they are leveling to they can get a real feel for how the server is in reality. Making it happen less frequently is still great, but having it happen every once in a while is beneficial all around.
New players don't understand the systems
- Get a focus group (or have guides) have most asked questions thrown to the players faces, faster.
- Simplify some things in the item system.
Honestly I don't really have an opinion on this or the next point, they aren't something that directly affect my experience as a player so I'll let others with more knowledge on that pitch in their ideas.
The systems are too complex.
- I'm at a loss to this one.
There is little high-end past max level.
- Push for Townships for high-end with political conflict to upgrade past certain points
- More Events
- Conquest points to promote pvpers camping areas and fighting each other.
This x10000000, I'm not going to type up an enormous post on this essentially repeating the things I said above because I think you are pretty spot on with how this should be dealt with. Simply giving people initiatives to go places to fight, such as towns or PvP hotspots will shift a lot of pressure off of low level players, because there is more gain to going to these spots than there is killing a naked level 16 necro in a swamp. This point cannot be stressed enough and I hope this is shifted into a priority.
Chat is Toxic and deters people from Role Play or joining into conversations
- Remove OOC chat
- Heavily moderate other chats
- or
- Heavily moderate and freely give out mutes for repeated offenders
I think that stronger moderation is something people could tolerate, but I am
VERY against getting rid of O chat personally. I think O chat is where a lot of the enjoyment from the server comes on, because it brings together the community in a lot of different ways, whether it be from people creating bonds or friendships to some extent (lol), but most importantly O chat creates rivalries. This is a strange point and I realize that, but it is infinitely more entertaining to see people shit talking each other than it is to see nothing. I would much rather opposing groups hate each other than be neutral to each other. I agree however that the extent to which some people (myself included) shit talk is probably a bit too toxic. It's not the amount that it happens, but its the sheer vulgarity in the shit talk that is a little bit offputting. I would like to point out however, that this issue is not something that is solely something that "Those gosh darn PvPers" have. The PvE community can be just as toxic in chat. The fault falls on a lot of people, however because the difference between the two groups mainly falls down to extreme vulgarity as opposed to passive aggressive comments and complaining, the blame falls a lot on the PvPers (not to say we aren't a problem when it comes to chat). It seems from my perspective that rules are rather vague and punishments seem incredibly inconsistent and biased, and I think that if better chat rules were implemented and those responsible for the muting stayed more objective that this issue could start to be dealt with quicker.
There's too much inflation with little need to actually spend coins.
- Properly Implement the Admin Shop for players to sink coins into.
I think I have 4c, no comment on this one.
There's no reason to log in every day.
- Revamp the /dailybonus rewards so that streaks of logins will grant awesome items or titles.
I think that this isn't as much a solution as it is a bonus. This isn't something that is going to get people to log on, this is something that will keep people on assuming they're already there. The incentive to play needs to come from the actual enjoyment of the game, not people logging in for a few minutes to collect their rewards then log off. The rewards and titles won't make any difference if nobody is around to experience them. I think that addressing the issues above will completely eliminate this problem. People don't log on to Herocraft saying "Oh boy, I can't wait for my 25c!" They log on hoping to get a fun experience out of the game, whatever they may be interested in.
Thanks for reading and please give me your feedback! I want Herocraft to be fun for everyone and to grow as a community!
All in all, I would just like to say Kainzo I really do appreciate you making a thread like this. I think it is phenomenal that you are willing to recognize when things can improve and it shows that you're interested in preserving the server. I've only been playing a few days and I've been having a ton of fun which was honestly much to my surprise, and I genuinely hope that this map can survive because it has so much potential. I hope that things get out of the planning stage and get into the doing stage however, because if too much time is spent trying to create the perfect system then the server will fill apart. It's ok to not have the perfect server, I'll take a slightly flawed or unbalanced PvP initiative over nothing 7 days a week.
