SANDBOX SOLVED (Chapter 2!)

Emdash

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2021
3,525
1,134
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This is some AC / DC shit.

Emdash is the Tesla of MoFo! Please consider my words because I believe they will illuminate something.

____

We were wrong all along (to recap.) The initial theory was that the world was a sandbox and that free placement, points of interest, and rare resources would create enduring content. This was seen as the end game. However, there were issues that came up, like new player experience / early progress. People gave up on protecting and developing towns because it was not 'worth it.'

The flaw has become apparent. In Mortal Online, you have to join a guild to optimally progress. The more people that join a guild, the more optimally you progress. Thus, people all join big guilds. This creates a really shit and 'gated' game haha.

However, if you imagine what a guild is and instead put towns in that first level role, the whole game shifts. If you are contributing to a TOWN, people are all centered around a core area. If people are contesting a town, it can be more easily made to where it isn't hide in seek in strongholds. If you log into Mortal Online 2 and you see 15 Odinseed parked at the bank, getting ready to run whatever dungeon, you will think "I should join Odinseed!" or you will be like "Odinseed sux," and try in vain to contest them.

If you log in to Mortal and the town is poppin', people are doing work, people are fighting people who are raiding the town or griefing the area, everyone in said town is working, whether they want to, either for or against the goal that is centered in that town. And their success / failure can shape the area around the town. Then, your choice is for or against said town. You instantly have a role even if you are a nub.

___

Guilds can still exist because people want to do things that are not exactly be a townie, but the core should be based in town. The idea that you should go as far away from town as you can to get end game content is flawed, and it creates exclusive zergy game play. If a town becomes 'a zerg' incentives can be given to people to oppose the town or to stop supporting it.

If a town gets pushed to the brink, incentives can be given to people who wanna play vs the world in the town. Big bonuses. Give like hero of Nave bonuses to make people stronger around that area, get more gains from resources around that area, etc. Set it at a point where it is generally pushing toward equality and then you have so much content.

You have town vs anti-town. You have town vs other town. You have guild vs guild. Mix and match.

People who wanna log in and grief town should be able to. They should be able to build camps n shit and troll out. That is content, a large portion of the player base wants to play like that, and the key is to make it so that there is a benefit for contesting them. That is why we don't need outlaws and bug invasions really. That is superficial meme content that is hiding the lack of endgame.

Let people grief the shit out of the town, and the more grief they inflict, the more the bonus that is given for defeating them. YES it is true that THE SAME PEOPLE could be griefing the town then 'defeat themselves.' But that's still content. In a small game, it still gives a lot of content for the adjacent new player who is trying to get involved. I ain't mad at that considering what is happening atm.

There are outposts, make the outposts that are based on a town be the town and give the outposts that are not associated with a town a camp. Let each region start out as its own entity and let things develop from there. Let the bonuses be for all people associated with the area based on how well the area is doing.

And say you are getting 15% mining bonus for being a citizen, you should get at least 15% mining bonus for being directly opposed to the area as well. We want content. We want people to fight in a more organic way.

Tell me where I am wrong here??
 

Bicorps

Active member
Jun 27, 2020
171
129
43
This is some AC / DC shit.

Emdash is the Tesla of MoFo! Please consider my words because I believe they will illuminate something.

____

We were wrong all along (to recap.) The initial theory was that the world was a sandbox and that free placement, points of interest, and rare resources would create enduring content. This was seen as the end game. However, there were issues that came up, like new player experience / early progress. People gave up on protecting and developing towns because it was not 'worth it.'

The flaw has become apparent. In Mortal Online, you have to join a guild to optimally progress. The more people that join a guild, the more optimally you progress. Thus, people all join big guilds. This creates a really shit and 'gated' game haha.

However, if you imagine what a guild is and instead put towns in that first level role, the whole game shifts. If you are contributing to a TOWN, people are all centered around a core area. If people are contesting a town, it can be more easily made to where it isn't hide in seek in strongholds. If you log into Mortal Online 2 and you see 15 Odinseed parked at the bank, getting ready to run whatever dungeon, you will think "I should join Odinseed!" or you will be like "Odinseed sux," and try in vain to contest them.

If you log in to Mortal and the town is poppin', people are doing work, people are fighting people who are raiding the town or griefing the area, everyone in said town is working, whether they want to, either for or against the goal that is centered in that town. And their success / failure can shape the area around the town. Then, your choice is for or against said town. You instantly have a role even if you are a nub.

___

Guilds can still exist because people want to do things that are not exactly be a townie, but the core should be based in town. The idea that you should go as far away from town as you can to get end game content is flawed, and it creates exclusive zergy game play. If a town becomes 'a zerg' incentives can be given to people to oppose the town or to stop supporting it.

If a town gets pushed to the brink, incentives can be given to people who wanna play vs the world in the town. Big bonuses. Give like hero of Nave bonuses to make people stronger around that area, get more gains from resources around that area, etc. Set it at a point where it is generally pushing toward equality and then you have so much content.

You have town vs anti-town. You have town vs other town. You have guild vs guild. Mix and match.

People who wanna log in and grief town should be able to. They should be able to build camps n shit and troll out. That is content, a large portion of the player base wants to play like that, and the key is to make it so that there is a benefit for contesting them. That is why we don't need outlaws and bug invasions really. That is superficial meme content that is hiding the lack of endgame.

Let people grief the shit out of the town, and the more grief they inflict, the more the bonus that is given for defeating them. YES it is true that THE SAME PEOPLE could be griefing the town then 'defeat themselves.' But that's still content. In a small game, it still gives a lot of content for the adjacent new player who is trying to get involved. I ain't mad at that considering what is happening atm.

There are outposts, make the outposts that are based on a town be the town and give the outposts that are not associated with a town a camp. Let each region start out as its own entity and let things develop from there. Let the bonuses be for all people associated with the area based on how well the area is doing.

And say you are getting 15% mining bonus for being a citizen, you should get at least 15% mining bonus for being directly opposed to the area as well. We want content. We want people to fight in a more organic way.

Tell me where I am wrong here??

I Have a question for you, WHY do you use the word "griefing" when the law doesnt apply AT ALL in a Openworld Sandbox MMORPG Full Loot PvP Territory Control Game. You can even chatgpt it hes gonna tell you the same thing if you type the game genra properly.

Also another thing that you are "wrong". There shoulnt be any zone buff, character should be very base like it was on MO1, no clade no grindy stupid numbers mechanic, you supposed to be enable to visually see what equipment your opponent is using with <knowledge> and decide if you want fight or not. Personaly when I was just fucking around in tindrem MO1 and spotted someone in Tung ogh cronite I was getting exited jumped streight up into the fight and if you loose you actually KNOW why because you SAW it, he had good gear and maybe you didnt play well enough BUT NEVER it was about "ahh he got better ring I didnt do any dmg bla bla bla he got better mastery bla bla bla" That some bullshit, even if you die from the guy and go fight again you still gonna get clap because you have that character gap and not only Gear Skill gap. Cant even spot those on MO2, the armor design and color are complete dogshit and look all the same, steel tung ogh cronite LITERLY look the same from distance.

Talking about armor again, MO1 armor color was looking so good compare to that 5 piece shit we got on MO2. There was so many color it was very intriguing me when I started to play, literly everyone looked completely different or almost. There was even a guy in full Jadeit with Pumpkin head or komodor that was using Wood armor that look blue like steel just to troll people in tindrem .. mo2 literly a worst version of mo1.
 
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Emdash

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2021
3,525
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I Have a question for you, WHY do you use the word "griefing" when the law doesnt apply AT ALL in a Openworld Sandbox MMORPG Full Loot PvP Territory Control Game. You can even chatgpt it hes gonna tell you the same thing if you type the game genra properly.

Also another thing that you are "wrong". There shoulnt be any zone buff, character should be very base like it was on MO1, no clade no grindy stupid numbers mechanic, you supposed to be enable to visually see what equipment your opponent is using with <knowledge> and decide if you want fight or not. Personaly when I was just fucking around in tindrem MO1 and spotted someone in Tung ogh cronite I was getting exited jumped streight up into the fight and if you loose you actually KNOW why because you SAW it, he had good gear and maybe you didnt play well enough BUT NEVER it was about "ahh he got better ring I didnt do any dmg bla bla bla he got better mastery bla bla bla" That some bullshit, even if you die from the guy and go fight again you still gonna get clap because you have that character gap and not only Gear Skill gap. Cant even spot those on MO2, the armor design and color are complete dogshit and look all the same, steel tung ogh cronite LITERLY look the same from distance.

Talking about armor again, MO1 armor color was looking so good compare to that 5 piece shit we got on MO2. There was so many color it was very intriguing me when I started to play, literly everyone looked completely different or almost. There was even a guy in full Jadeit with Pumpkin head or komodor that was using Wood armor that look blue like steel just to troll people in tindrem .. mo2 literly a worst version of mo1.

I dunno. I write what comes into my mind. I guess I assume people have already read a bunch of my posts and understand when I am being facetious and not. I was using the word as a joke, but to reference what people DO call griefing which is targeting townies, which I still think is a legit play style.

I dunno also @ zone buffs. I would much prefer there to be mild buffs associated with something other than trinkets / mastery / outposts. This makes more sense, to me.

I think keeping scores for many things is pro-growth. I think titles that are meaningful are pro-growth. I think it's what people want. They grind to know their character has something that can't be lost, it was said, so allow gains to also go to their place of origin (should they choose one) and allow them to have an associated title.

The thing about MMOs IMO is people want to be important and they want to be able to show off their success. This inspires a lot of conflict. It can inspire more conflict than a meteor or bug invasion imo. It just seems like all of these mechanics they added could have made more sense 'like this.'

I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong, and raw combat buffs are not necessary, just like picking a faction or whatever is not required. It is just a base structure to get people playing within a system.

If we have learned anything about human behavior in MO, we have learned that 1. only the most brain damaged people (me :p) do not optimize their game play based on what gives the best reward. 2. rewards actually shape the sandbox. I was posting on MO discord, and someone said even analytics show that most people just do their dailys and log. Aiye.

The main thing I would say is that... instead of having a game that has 'no rules / no goal' and has resources to 'compete' over and mechanics to support that competition, why not make a game with soft goals, and the rules will be made around people trying to accomplish those goals, much in the same way they would do their dailies, except they would be playing the game and be interacting with others. Then add resources to help interpret and define how that interaction can go.

So, you can be a citizen or of a faction and kill your own guys. It will have use. It won't be that rewarding though. But the people who play for that kind of content need people playing in actual content, like driving the world, so that they can have fun killing their own guys lol.

Like, another example, if someone is a bandit. Let's say you are deciding to be a tindrem bandit and you guys build your little base camp outside of tindrem and fight people who try to enter / leave, play around tindrem... let's say you kill 100 people and loot 10k gold worth of shit. Then let's say after saving all of your stuff, you finally get overrun and your base is destroyed.

Where are you, not as a player but as in your in-game avatar? You have a bad reputation, for sure, but if you wanted to say ohwell gonna try the town life now and decided to be a citizen, should you be punished for your previous behavior? IMO *NO.* I think the punishment should be to dissuade said behavior or reward engaging in said behavior PROPER.

Then, everyone has fun, everyone gets rewards. Maybe people won't take well to you joining their little community, ok. But that's content, too. It's like... in this game all that shit is happening, except it's based on guilds and tends to snowball into zergs. If you base it on something that is more open and at least in the beginning neutral, everyone will benefit.

I'm not mad about buffs; I'm not mad about divi weapons from meteors. It just has to make sense. There are soo many types of people that wanna play this game, and I am pretty open to what people do, but certain things are just cancer and arguably make the game worse, like grinding to spec your character. The game should have never become a race to who can spec their char, and people are competing for that, for trinkets or w/e. It is basically the opposite of game play that is backed by towns.

More people need to play. More people need to be doing stuff, without having to hard commit to joining a zerg. Please consider this solution even if you do not like every aspect I am saying, the thing I am suggesting is a core idea, the stuff like giving people buffs is my own randomness, just filling in blanks in my mind. Thanks for responding haha.
 

MO2RIP

Member
Feb 9, 2022
31
15
8
not seeing it lol. I am glad they are trying to make some level of core changes, but they are afraid to go all in and not doing it right.
 

Iloros

Active member
Dec 14, 2023
357
65
28
not seeing it lol. I am glad they are trying to make some level of core changes, but they are afraid to go all in and not doing it right.
So true on the all in part, its very annoying and I daresay low IQ, your game has 200 pop, your entire systems are unbalanced, your analytics tool self admittedly shows you that many things in all systems arent used AT ALL and what do you do with that info?

You do tiny clade gift changes, that will in 2 patches cover 10/120 clade gifts.

What are we doing??? I know for a fact:

flanged 1h mace isnt used by anyone

Noones taking the battlecry upgrades in masteries

Empoer is almost on noones ablity bar

Noones using gold or aabam or pig iron to make weapons or armors

Noone is doing many dungeons and pois

Noones using idk night snatchers as pets

Hey can we buff those systems now that analytics confirm noones uisng them? At this rate of 5 clade gifts per patch average they will get to balance clade gifts by 2028 and then move on to masteries lol.

Go all in man games genuinely cooked theres NOTHING to preserve nothing in your game is balanced at all