State of the game 2021

[bonecold]

I wanted to follow up on the discussion in the PVP realm this morning, I actually find it really interesting. Let me first say that although I've played a lot of mmud throughout my life, I haven't played in over a decade, and I've only been on gmud for a month and still learning a lot of the differences. I've also only played my witchunter on the PVP realm so it's harder to comment on the other classes and differences from PVE to PVP, and so these comments are tainted from that perspective as well as based on imperfect knowledge. I also want to say that I think overall the devs have done amazing job of replicating the game engine, tuning the game, and adding new content. Great job and thanks for keeping the game alive. That said, here's a few things I've been thinking about:

1) Gear choices - at least for my witchunter there's almost always a 'best' choice for most gear slots as I level up. In game design you hear the word 'agency' thrown around a lot, which I've personally come to find that term really annoying, but the idea makes sense. As a player I should have more agency over my item choices, for example giving up some AC to get more max damage. Stuff like that. Again I don't know how this is for the other classes, but I think introducing more varied items and allowing players more optionality is a good thing. Along these lines, the choice of race seems slightly less impactful overall, maybe that's just my perception, but this could maybe be helped by adding some race specific items, which would again increase optionality for players.

2) Weapon choices - this is tied in to the above but wanted to call it out separately as we briefly discussed it. I again admit I'm not intimately familiar with the combat system, but as far as I can tell, smashing is the superior attack for most classes that can utilize it from about level 30-50. And in that level range, nothing is better than the tree trunk, BY MILES. I think it's ok to have a top tier weapon like that, but there should also be a little more optionality for smashers, as the 'meta' gets stale when it's all based around the tree trunk. How about instead of only a 30-100 super slow weapon, why not a 25-90 super slow weapon, that's a little more easy to get than a 1% drop on a 3 hour regen? Or 40-80, for less max damage but more consistency in damage? Again this just goes back to the idea of 'agency' and not having just 1 choice.

3) Bosses/quests - I think players that are at keys more often should be rewarded, compared to those who just script 24/7. This could take the form of more bosses as well as some kind of daily quests. If you can script at 1mil/hr at your current level, and you are at keys and decide to go take an hour to walk somewhere, get some special key (or whatever) and kill a boss or three, you should be rewarded with more exp than you would have got if you just scripted for that hour. As it is right now, I don't think there are enough bosses with low regen timers at the main level ranges that would support this style.

4) Late game in PVP / "Winning" PVP - I haven't experienced this myself but I think there are valid concerns from some people about the gated content as well as how you measure success/winning in PVP, which I think is significantly different than PVE. I won't comment on that too much except to say that I don't think PVP should be judged just based on who has the most exp, OR who has the most pvp kills (which can kinda be gamed). Instead, I had this crazy idea, which hasn't been totally thought through and might just be garbage, but I'll throw it out there anyway: What if there was some item, which I'll just call a 'token' for now, that many of the main bosses drop (at a 5% rate or something), as well as having 50 some odd tokens randomly scattered and hidden throughout the realm. And then there is a mechanism to turn in the tokens, and who has turned in the most tokens is tracked on an individual and per-gang basis, and 'winning' is judged that way. You can still steal/pvp someone and take their un-turned-in tokens, and it rewards people that explore and kill bosses. And then here's the kicker that might help the late game aspect -- what if after level 75, you could reroll, but it adds a flag to your character, and now every token you turn in is worth 2 points instead of 1 point? And if you make it to level 75 a 3rd time, and reroll again, now your tokens are worth 3 points? I think this has the potential to help solve that late game grind that goes on for months with (what seems like) very little interactivity. I also think there is a lot of early game/low-level content that is really cool, and that never really gets utilized or seen again as everyone grinds away at the higher levels, and adding an intentional re-roll mechanism helps keep the utilization of that low level content up.

5) Consistent release/reset cycle - I don't see this as a problem but I just think it would be nice, and to have some overall 'hall of fame' leaderboard from each push as a record of the top performers from that push. And also just to know that each year (or whatever timeframe) there will be a reset. Would also be cool to allow the 'winner(s)' (however it's determined) of each push to add a little content to the game, within reason. A new small area, an item they design, something like that.

So obviously I added my disclaimers above but just wanted to say one more time, feel free to take all, some, or none of my ideas to heart, I mostly just wanted to throw it out there. There's probably other stuff but that's what's been at the front of my mind as I've been playing the last month.  And most importantly, thanks again for all your (unpaid, completely voluntarily) work over the years on this legacy game.

[Greater]

1) Gear choices - at least for my witchunter there's almost always a 'best' choice for most gear slots as I level up. In game design you hear the word 'agency' thrown around a lot, which I've personally come to find that term really annoying, but the idea makes sense. As a player I should have more agency over my item choices, for example giving up some AC to get more max damage. Stuff like that. Again I don't know how this is for the other classes, but I think introducing more varied items and allowing players more optionality is a good thing. Along these lines, the choice of race seems slightly less impactful overall, maybe that's just my perception, but this could maybe be helped by adding some race specific items, which would again increase optionality for players.

Generally these gear options do exist, however, you have chosen the class with probably the least options in this area. We're adding more over time, but simplicity is part of the Witchunter class and that kind of limits your options with this class.

2) Weapon choices - this is tied in to the above but wanted to call it out separately as we briefly discussed it. I again admit I'm not intimately familiar with the combat system, but as far as I can tell, smashing is the superior attack for most classes that can utilize it from about level 30-50. And in that level range, nothing is better than the tree trunk, BY MILES. I think it's ok to have a top tier weapon like that, but there should also be a little more optionality for smashers, as the 'meta' gets stale when it's all based around the tree trunk. How about instead of only a 30-100 super slow weapon, why not a 25-90 super slow weapon, that's a little more easy to get than a 1% drop on a 3 hour regen? Or 40-80, for less max damage but more consistency in damage? Again this just goes back to the idea of 'agency' and not having just 1 choice.

Smash is useful throughout the game as a utility attack and is often used as a primary attack from about 20 to 40 or so depending on your class. Witchunters tend to smash longer, particularly if they obtain a tree trunk. The trunk is rare exactly because it is a very powerful smasher. This doesn't mean other options don't exist, in fact there are a handful of options just as you've described, but if you secure a tree trunk there isn't a large need for other ones. We have viewed smash as a utility attack with some use in certain level ranges as a primary attack, and while we may create interesting new smash options going forward, it's not going to be a large priority due to our view of the smash attack as a utilitarian option.

3) Bosses/quests - I think players that are at keys more often should be rewarded, compared to those who just script 24/7. This could take the form of more bosses as well as some kind of daily quests. If you can script at 1mil/hr at your current level, and you are at keys and decide to go take an hour to walk somewhere, get some special key (or whatever) and kill a boss or three, you should be rewarded with more exp than you would have got if you just scripted for that hour. As it is right now, I don't think there are enough bosses with low regen timers at the main level ranges that would support this style.

I couldn't agree more. Our main limitation in this arena is simply time and manpower, but since you are pretty new I will tell you that every push we add more bosses and quests. There are a good half a dozen or so new quests right now with multiple new quests already done for next push and more planned. There are more than a half dozen new bosses done for next push with plans to add as many as we can get in.  I'm not a huge fan of daily quests in MMORPGs, but I do think they could serve GMUD well. It's something we've discussed in the past and we're open to the idea, though again the main limiting factor is time and people to do it.

4) Late game in PVP / "Winning" PVP - I haven't experienced this myself but I think there are valid concerns from some people about the gated content as well as how you measure success/winning in PVP, which I think is significantly different than PVE. I won't comment on that too much except to say that I don't think PVP should be judged just based on who has the most exp, OR who has the most pvp kills (which can kinda be gamed). Instead, I had this crazy idea, which hasn't been totally thought through and might just be garbage, but I'll throw it out there anyway: What if there was some item, which I'll just call a 'token' for now, that many of the main bosses drop (at a 5% rate or something), as well as having 50 some odd tokens randomly scattered and hidden throughout the realm. And then there is a mechanism to turn in the tokens, and who has turned in the most tokens is tracked on an individual and per-gang basis, and 'winning' is judged that way. You can still steal/pvp someone and take their un-turned-in tokens, and it rewards people that explore and kill bosses. And then here's the kicker that might help the late game aspect -- what if after level 75, you could reroll, but it adds a flag to your character, and now every token you turn in is worth 2 points instead of 1 point? And if you make it to level 75 a 3rd time, and reroll again, now your tokens are worth 3 points? I think this has the potential to help solve that late game grind that goes on for months with (what seems like) very little interactivity. I also think there is a lot of early game/low-level content that is really cool, and that never really gets utilized or seen again as everyone grinds away at the higher levels, and adding an intentional re-roll mechanism helps keep the utilization of that low level content up.

To answer the second portion of the paragraph first: It's a cool concept. For as long as I've played video games and muds, people always want a way to measure themselves against other players, often times to have irrefutable evidence of who is the best or better than someone else. Some of these rankings already exist through lists like the top list, top level and top gang. We have stated our intention to work towards also having a pvp kill top list as an additional metric to measure success and failure. As cool as the system you've laid out sounds, it ends up being a lot more complex on the back end with coding, and often times we have to heavily triage ideas where only the most important and relevant ones end up actually being put into the game. We now have this idea on file on the forums when we look to future PVP realm intentions, so it's something we can discuss in time when all the higher priority work in the pipeline is done.

To respond to the first portion of the post, I would say that different people measure their success in the PVP realm in different ways. Some folks might be happy to simply kill someone that annoys them a few times. Some players want to use their exp making skills to push deep into the game, prioritizing power gains through levels and reaching untouched content first. Some people like to prioritize prevention of their enemies from achieving things through pvp, considering this more important than any other aspect of the game. Others might play pvp just to chat in gossip which can be quite lively, often times quitting the game when someone kills them because they never really prioritized playing the game from the start. Having many ways to play the game is part of what has made it so replayable over the years. This game has so much to offer to people who like to have a unique experience each time they start anew. When you have so many ways to play the game, there will inevitably be people who strategically choose to prioritize different things. There is no guarantee that the way you like to play will indeed be the "best" or most efficient way to play, and we find that often times by heavily leaning towards one strategy, one may find themselves weakened or crippled vs other strategies. That is the heart of this game; that is its nature. If your main enemy is someone who is adept at making good exp and advancing in levels, then you had better kill them or find a way to pace with them if you want to compete. One can't choose to prioritize other things over this and then be upset that you can't have it both ways.

In this regard I believe it is also a mistake to look at things like class exping potential through the lens of a momentary snapshot. The truth is that there is no class that is undeniably the best at all level ranges, and indeed there is quite a bit of waxing and waning for different classes through different level ranges. From time to time people like to use these comparisons to show how much worse they are than the bogeyman above them. Often times it simply represents a gap in skill or knowledge, or in the previous choices made having slowed the complainer down.

On general gating, this is something that has been in the game since the beginning. In stock mud Newhaven is level gated. The crypt is level gated. Virtually ALL quests are level gated. Places like the wastelands, the NPP, druid bosses (both level and class gated), and the White Forest is gated by alignment. Access to the Arlysia library is gated until you have killed your major 5th quest boss. Access to end game ares like the Ancient Fortress is gated. Heck, even access to cross Crystal Lake or to get on the galleon are both gated. Portal access is widely level gated. Learning spells or mystic powers/forms is level gated and sometimes gated by both level and quest.

Gating has always been part of the RPG genre in both traditional single player and mulitplayer games since the very beginning. It forces the player to achieve a level of success before being allowed access to further content and higher challenges. Gating isn't something that we've used extensively, but where we feel it is necessary we have used it. Areas like the void, Ancient Fortress, islands and the Timelord's portals represent a high tier of content that would be cheapened by allowing access to any levels. How much less fun would the endgame be for the average player if they know that a handful of people with @s on enough characters can just go snake all the first kill drops in these areas with a mob of afks? What is there to look forward if a dozen level 50s can go set up shop in the best end game spots before anybody is even near the suggested level to tackle these places on their own?

The argument from a player on pvp was that it is bad when he can't even get into the void to attack his enemies. I would submit that this is the result of his own choices. His enemy got to the required level before he did because he prioritized it, while the player in question decided to settle for modest exp all game and then rerolled. Level gates limit everyone equally; it is the player's choices that determine his access or lack thereof in this case. Remember that you don't need to necessarily match your enemy's experience gains to pace with them. You need to make good enough gains relative to your own experience chart.

The one exception to this notion is when there is an egregious imbalance in the ability of classes to make exp proportionate to their exp chart. In these cases we do balance tweaking and tuning as necessary. See above for additional details about classes performing at different levels of success through different level ranges.

5) Consistent release/reset cycle - I don't see this as a problem but I just think it would be nice, and to have some overall 'hall of fame' leaderboard from each push as a record of the top performers from that push. And also just to know that each year (or whatever timeframe) there will be a reset. Would also be cool to allow the 'winner(s)' (however it's determined) of each push to add a little content to the game, within reason. A new small area, an item they design, something like that.

Generally we aim for about a year between resets, and that's always been the plan since we started this realm project. The pandemic threw a bit of a wrench into people's schedules and availability last push, and so we ended up going way past the idealized reset time. Moving forward and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we intend to do our best to hold to the year schedule. It might interest some folks to know that we have also discussed setting up a third realm with a shorter reset cycle. We're still in discussions about this, so please, expect no promises. But it's something we're thinking about.

Currently at the end of each push, we record the names and experience levels of the top players of each class on each realm. These are listed on the statues in the Silvermere park, and they include numbers from the last two pushes. I do agree that some sort of official Hall of Fame might be a cool thing eventually, but for now this is how we honor those who excel on each push.

So obviously I added my disclaimers above but just wanted to say one more time, feel free to take all, some, or none of my ideas to heart, I mostly just wanted to throw it out there. There's probably other stuff but that's what's been at the front of my mind as I've been playing the last month.  And most importantly, thanks again for all your (unpaid, completely voluntarily) work over the years on this legacy game.

We've always listened to feedback when it comes in a reasonable form like this. I appreciate you taking the time to convey all this information and encourage others who want to leave feedback to follow this example. I also want to thank you for setting up the Greater Turbo Sentry website. It's a really great tool for players to see how they're measuring up against other players and to help fine tune their game or discover where their enemy might be hiding. It's been my pleasure to work on this project and I would return the thank you for giving us a shot and caring enough to have some discussions about it.

[bonecold]

Thanks for your detailed reply and kind words on my greater sentry!

I guess to clarify my thoughts on Tree Trunk -- I've always felt this item was way over-tuned, and was even worse when it was limited 1. Again maybe I'm just ignorant on the details of the combat system, but it seems like when smashing, you're throwing all swing calculations, weapon speed, etc out the window, and only looking at the min and max damage of the weapon. Someone said Nexus Spear can be better for smashing, but I don't see how that's possible if you're strictly comparing the damage, 20-75 vs 30-100. But even if there are other factors for the damage, thats a level 50 magical item so doesn't apply to witchies in the range I'm talking about (35-49). It seems that regular swings will only overtake smash damage when you get closer to the level 50 range and can be qnd with a high dmg/speed weapon. I think this is fine and I like smash falling into this 'mid-level' space like you describe, but to have only 1 very rare item thats hands and feet above any other weapon from a smashing perspective, I don't really like. Just wish there were a few other treetrunk-like items in that 35-49 range. Right now I'm using golden pike (15-50) and my rounds are 105-400, average of 220, so the damage seems to be about a 7x multiplier. So I imagine tree trunk is going to be hitting from around 200-700, with an average closer to 375? So the average of tree trunk is close to the max of the next best smash weapon (ok maybe sharktooth trident, but its pretty close to golden pike), and I just don't see how anything else can even come close to that kind of damage average until level 50, especially for witchunters.

As for other witchunter items, I definitely see your point that this should be an intentional drawback for witchies. But I still think there should be more 'paths' on how to spec a witchunter essentially (as well as a couple other classes, particularly warlock). I've always thought witchunters shouldn't be "forced" into going full scale, and from a thematic standpoint it would be cool to have them have a mix of cloth, leather and scale, sacrificing certain scale items for other items that give less AC but instead give bonuses to dmg, hp-regen, something else, etc. So it'd be possible to build a high AC witchie with medium enc, as opposed to a witchie going for less AC with a light enc and high swing build.

As for the level content gates -- I also want to clarify that I'm not against them at all, and they actually add a lot of interesting strategy. I remember long ago staying in the crypt for an extra long time because someone above 11 was waiting for me. But I can also see the other perspective where once you get to the really high levels, 80+, which takes a long time, people can just go to these new areas and be almost untouchable, further increasing the gap between them and those who can't access it. I don't know what the right solution is here, maybe it's fine as-is, but I think it's at least worth talking about. It's a kind of tricky subject and I haven't even been to these new areas myself which is why I didn't delve into it too much, and also why I'm more interested in some kind of 'intentional re-roll' mechanic that mixes the higher level players back in with the lower level players and gets more use out of the lower level content.

Lastly, how to define winning/success, I totally agree is going to vary per individual and is one of the things that makes mud interesting. I think my idea with the tokens was more to facilitate that intentional re-roll mechanic as well as define some success criteria thats different from pure exp gained (which is essentially THE metric in PVE). But yea, just ideas, of course everything will have a development cost and needs to be prioritized.

Also, didn't know about the park, will have to check that out :)