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Open World team/player requirement for Activation

This past week, I've been seeing many comments being made in Zone chat about a player who starts attacking the starter NPCs and thus, advancing the open mission progression before all the players have arrived in the zone to complete in the end stage.
A similar incident kept occurring for the Mechanon event, a lone player would start it off despite being requested several times not to activate the next stage.

Why they are disregarding player requests to stop interfering, I do not know.
Either they're causing inconvenience for petty amusement or they simply don't care that they are causing inconvenience.

To this end, since these nuisance players will not restrain themselves from acting improperly, I think a game mechanism needs to be put in place to check the activation of the mission before it is allowed to continue to the next stage, to prevent a lone player activating the next stage all by themselves.

I'm not sure what kind of check could be created, but the easiest kind would be if someone's not joined to a team in the open mission, they can't target the enemy npcs or interact with the objects, thus preventing them from having any effect on the mission whatsoever.

Another kind of check could be a population check, if there aren't 4 full teams of player assembled, then the enemy npcs or interactive objects won't appear.
While I don't know from personal experience, other players have mentioned 4x5 players is the standard.
This was definitely the case for Mechanon, 3 pillar teams and one for the giant Mechanon construct.

Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad :'(

Comments

  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    The standard way of preventing premature starts is by making the starting phase impossible or impractical to solo.
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    tilarta wrote: »
    but the easiest kind would be if someone's not joined to a team in the open mission, they can't target the enemy npcs or interact with the objects

    Yep, this does sound easy to code :3 2 line code tops
    tilarta wrote: »

    Another kind of check could be a population check, if there aren't 4 full teams of player assembled, then the enemy npcs or interactive objects won't appear.

    I mean just last night we had a DRA run with little more than 10 players, and a couple months ago I made a topic where a couple of folks and I managed to do ape with a 5 man team. Both scenarios were a complete and smooth success due to the fact that the players involved followed instructions and knew what they were doing. Your proposed change punishes these people.

    You see, there's this misconceived notion that Quantity > Quality, when in reality Quality >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Quantity. I've seen Anniversary runs start with 30+ players and fail by a longshot because the right amount of quality players were not present.

    So my tip for the community is: learn the playerbase. We have the "advantage" of being a small community so just by paying attention to a couple of Cosmic fights or event fights you'll be able to spot which players do a good job at tanking, which players are your bff healer buddies and which players are your single man DPS army. Then once you've done this, the general rule for event success is 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 2 DPS of the aforementioned "experienced" players and you will never fail an event again.​​
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    Just make phase 1 require killing three zombie generators with 100,000 hp and 10,000 regen/sec each (and aggro chaining on zombies). Any individual or team that can kill that can kill the deathlords.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    tilarta wrote: »
    I'm not sure what kind of check could be created, but the easiest kind would be if someone's not joined to a team in the open mission, they can't target the enemy npcs or interact with the objects, thus preventing them from having any effect on the mission whatsoever.

    So, all they have to do is team up and then they can continue their disruptive behavior? That doesn't even sound like it'd be worth the time spent coding it.
    tilarta wrote: »
    Another kind of check could be a population check, if there aren't 4 full teams of player assembled, then the enemy npcs or interactive objects won't appear.

    Eeeeeh... what if we have 18 people, and nobody is showing up... like we're begging in zone for somebody to show up and nobody does. I'm not really eager to see the "wait around for the needed role to show up" experience of Cosmics replicated here.
    Just make phase 1 require killing three zombie generators with 100,000 hp and 10,000 regen/sec each (and aggro chaining on zombies). Any individual or team that can kill that can kill the deathlords.

    This looks both effective and intuitive, and even adds something to the event. +1 Approve! s( o w o)=b​​
  • tilartatilarta Posts: 291 Arc User
    I said easiest, not most practical.
    But I assume just like regular team play, there's a designated leader and if they disapprove of the member, they can hit the kick button.
    Also, there should be a cooldown penalty, if a member is removed from one open team, they can't join another for 30 minutes to avoid them jumping to another team to continue their disruption.

    Except during low population times (presumably because everyone or most of them are asleep), I've never seen an event run lacking in the numbers necessary for completion.
    Heck, at least 10 times this week, I've seen the zone max out in population seconds after the first callout is made.
    In one specific case, it maxed out before anyone made the callout!!! :s

    I am not that familiar with the currently running event, I assume it just required piling on the damage output until a boss fell, then moving onto the next one until they all were out.

    Mechanon on the other hand, I know that well enough to know that it doesn't allow the luxury of all teams congregating at a single location.
    If they all go after Mechanon's MegaRageDroid for example, nobody is disabling the towers buffing the MRD up.
    In my personal experience, one tower requires a minimum of at least two players, one to keep the mobs away from the tower controls and another to keep switching it off.

    But I'm not the game designer, so it's up to them to figure out how to design a system to keep the nuisance players from messing up open world missions.

    The most practical solution of course, would simply be to move the mission to an alert and thus, out of the open world.
    But I don't think that's what they intended, so probably won't happen.

    Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
    Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad :'(
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    tilarta wrote: »
    I said easiest, not most practical.
    Easiest (as in 'no coding required') is the meat-wall option.
    tilarta wrote: »
    But I assume just like regular team play, there's a designated leader and if they disapprove of the member, they can hit the kick button.
    That's not the way open missions work, and sort of misses the point of an open mission.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    tilarta wrote: »
    Heck, at least 10 times this week, I've seen the zone max out in population seconds after the first callout is made.

    So yet another reason that solution wouldn't be effective. I think we can consider that one thoroughly defeated then.
    tilarta wrote: »
    The most practical solution of course, would simply be to move the mission to an alert and thus, out of the open world.
    But I don't think that's what they intended, so probably won't happen.

    Yep, they intended for this to be open world content, so that would not be a practical solution whatsoever. Why are we even thinking of new solutions anyway, Panta already nailed it with his.​​
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    wait till we get the crypts and people go round setting them all off, just to get zombie kills
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  • tilartatilarta Posts: 291 Arc User
    @pantagruel01
    There have been times when I honestly wished there was a kick option for open teams.
    Too many times I've seen the 0 level team member and have to waste time looking for a non-bugged team instead of actually advancing the mission.
    Which would be so much simpler if this buggy player was simply kicked out of the team by the leader to make room for an actual player.

    Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
    Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad :'(
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    If they were willing to put in the effort for coding a kick option, they could just put in the effort to automatically remove 0 level characters. Also, a 0 level doesn't bug your team per se -- the bug is that auras only cross between teams if every team from 1 up to whatever you're in has at least 1 real player.
  • dreadjaws2dreadjaws2 Posts: 58 Arc User
    Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to have much in the way of dealing with griefers. The other day we were attacking a passive OV and suddenly an active OV showed up out of nowhere to kill us with no warning, clearly taking an unfair advantage without permission. And it turned out this character has been doing that for YEARS.

    Granted, this is not the kind of game in which griefing is easy, but when it happens it's supremely annoying.

    I think the idea of having to be part of an actual team (instead of the open team) to start an open mission would be a good idea. If people start behaving incorrectly then they can be kicked off the team. Then, when the mission is started (i.e. the timer starts running) anyone can join, whether teamed-up or not.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    Unfortunately, the game doesn't seem to have much in the way of dealing with griefers. The other day we were attacking a passive OV and suddenly an active OV showed up out of nowhere to kill us with no warning, clearly taking an unfair advantage without permission. And it turned out this character has been doing that for YEARS.
    To be fair, it was never intended for passive OVs to exist, so the active OV is actually playing closer to the way Onslaught is intended than the passive OV.
  • dreadjaws2dreadjaws2 Posts: 58 Arc User
    To be fair, it was never intended for passive OVs to exist, so the active OV is actually playing closer to the way Onslaught is intended than the passive OV.
    Technically yes, but we all know the guy is not doing it out of a desire to play the game by its rules. After all, he used to belong to a SG that was banned for griefing.
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    Well, more than one of the Mechanon OMs failed because the majority of players brought low-level toons to be carried for those sweet sweet xpees.

    An issue with the dreadlords is that a lot of Millenium zones were already close to full with people who, seemingly, weren't into grinding the OMs. So, people who wanted to fight them couldn't get there, in a reasonable time-frame.

    What I'm saying is that there are bigger issues than griefers afoot.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    Technically yes, but we all know the guy is not doing it out of a desire to play the game by its rules. After all, he used to belong to a SG that was banned for griefing.

    Doesn't matter, the activity he was engaging in does not count as griefing. Being an opportunist and griefing are not the same thing. On the other hand if he dives into a group of people fighting a PvE boss, that's griefing because those people were not intending to participate in the OV pvp system. However, if you are attacking an Onslaught Villain then you are engaging in the OV pvp system.

    I mean hey, in BASH my intent was that I would blow people up from stealth and never actually have to fight somebody one on one. Doesn't mean the guy who found my hiding spot and started blasting me was a griefer.​​
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Doesn't matter, the activity he was engaging in does not count as griefing. Being an opportunist and griefing are not the same thing.
    It's still possible to grief with OVs, but blowing up people who are beating on an idle OV is doing everyone a favor. The OV gets tokens, the targets get valuable experience in situational awareness.
  • lezard21lezard21 Posts: 1,510 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    clearly taking an unfair advantage without permission.

    LOL this sentence is pure 2018 gold.

    PvP has to be consentual guys​​
  • vonqballvonqball Posts: 923 Arc User
    ^It's also funny because he's complaining that his player collusion was rudely interrupted by someone actually fighting players with the OV.
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    Man, can you imagine if CO pvp was full of people constantly trying to say everyone else is a bad person for taking advantage of things that make it easier for them to win.... oh wait.​​
  • dreadjaws2dreadjaws2 Posts: 58 Arc User
    lezard21 wrote: »
    PvP has to be consentual guys​​

    Why wouldn't it be? People should only engage in PVP if they want to. That's pretty much the entire point. If I queue into a PVP match that's because I intend to play against other people. When I go to, say, BITE, I expect to fight other players. Of course it has to be consensual, why the hell are you all mocking me as if I was saying something ridiculous? Particularly when we're talking about a game in which the great majority of the content is PVE.

    Even the original way OV was supposed to work required consent. A guy would attack players as a villain, and they'd choose. If they wanted to fight to get tokens they'd stay, otherwise they'd just leave.

    If this guy had merely attacked people standing as an OV that would have been no problem, as that's part of the rules, but he went specifically to the one place people didn't expect to be attacked. That's griefing. Situational awareness my ****.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    Why wouldn't it be? People should only engage in PVP if they want to.
    And by attacking an OV, you are declaring that you want to engage in PvP. You might think you were declaring only a desire to farm an idle OV, but that belief is incorrect.
  • chaelkchaelk Posts: 7,732 Arc User
    when the OV's were on PTS, I pointed out all the ways,they would get around the "must attack first". The exact same way they were got around while playing Rift. The Dev in charge, (not Kaiserin) likes pvp and left it as is.
    They then went back to STO and left the devs here to fix the rorts as they turned up.
    Like farming respawn points.
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  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited October 2018
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    If this guy had merely attacked people standing as an OV that would have been no problem, as that's part of the rules, but he went specifically to the one place people didn't expect to be attacked. That's griefing. Situational awareness my ****.

    Really. The ONE place where you wouldn't expect to be attacked. That ONE place is next to an OV in Rencen? Likely in the spot where OVs usually show up? That's the ONE place in the whole wide world where you wouldn't expect to be attacked. Not Canada, or Monster Island or Lemuria.. no. For you the ONE place is... right next to an actual OV that you are actively attacking which flags you for OV pvp. That set of circumstances led you to believe that you were 100% safe from OV attack...

    Listen... bit of advice. Stop using your **** for situational awareness, it's not working at all.​​
  • darqaura2darqaura2 Posts: 932 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    dreadjaws2 wrote: »
    If this guy had merely attacked people standing as an OV that would have been no problem, as that's part of the rules, but he went specifically to the one place people didn't expect to be attacked. That's griefing. Situational awareness my ****.

    Really. The ONE place where you wouldn't expect to be attacked. That ONE place is next to an OV in Rencen? Likely in the spot where OVs usually show up? That's the ONE place in the whole wide world where you wouldn't expect to be attacked. Not Canada, or Monster Island or Lemuria.. no. For you the ONE place is... right next to an actual OV that you are actively attacking which flags you for OV pvp. That set of circumstances led you to believe that you were 100% safe from OV attack...

    Listen... bit of advice. Stop using your **** for situational awareness, it's not working at all.​​

    LMAO, perfect response. Folks need to learn to use common sense, hell any sense whatsoever.
  • soulforgersoulforger Posts: 1,649 Arc User
    Or...they can just remove time limits from the fights. They stand there till defeated, at which point they than go on CD. That way, if one person goes mental, they die, nothing is lost and players are not forced to scramble to fix the chaos.
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