Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Roundtable Discussion: GCW and TEFs
JanuHull wrote:
I've been told they put the radar in because they were concerned about people using third party hacks to get radar anyway.
It would be nice if it were an option, but because the threat of third party exploits exists, the option to protect yourself needs to be there.
That was my understanding too, but what if they took the radar out alltogether? I have played in online 1st person shooter games that do not have radar and it works fine.So long as the art work is fine enough for you to see yourtargets. And good art work is definatly one of SWG's greatest strengths.
IntoTheGarbage wrote:
JanuHull wrote:
I've been told they put the radar in because they were concerned about people using third party hacks to get radar anyway.
It would be nice if it were an option, but because the threat of third party exploits exists, the option to protect yourself needs to be there.
That was my understanding too, but what if they took the radar out alltogether? I have played in online 1st person shooter games that do not have radar and it works fine.So long as the art work is fine enough for you to see yourtargets. And good art work is definatly one of SWG's greatest strengths.
Thunderheart wrote:
One of the ongoing community discussions is the GCW, PvP and the issue of TEF's. TEF's exist because we have a mix of playstyles with a PvP switch. Overts are PvP all the time and Covert's are PvP sometimes. Because of this situation, there are a list of actions that happen in the game that cause a player to get a "Temporary Enemy Flag" that makes them Overt for a short period of time or prevents them from trading to an enemy, etc.
To kick things off, lets create a "players handbook" listfor GCW TEF's that catalogue's all of the possible TEF's and use it as a point of discussion so we can identify which items promote exciting Overt / Covert combat situations and which are problematic.
TH the problem is that group TEF does not actually make a person overt. It only the members of the opposing group can attack the TEFed person. Those list of actions you refer to do NOT actually make the person overt.
If those actions did make them overt, that would solve some (but not all) of the TEF problems. The problem of a covert first strike would still remain. What if:
1) Those listed actions (not counting group) caused a switch to OVERT status.
2) Group members should receive a 15 second delay when trying to attack an opposing faction before they are switched to overt. During that 15 second delay period, they are subject to attack but cannot actually attack themself UNLESS an overt of the opposing faction attacks them during the delay period.
To give an example how this would work:
Rebel group vs Imperial group
Rebel covert in the group sees his overt friend being attack. He then attempts to attack the Imperial. From the moment he tries to attack, a 15 second timer starts and now the rebel player is flagged but cannot attack back. This is the righteous penalty for this player not declaring at a recruiter as should be done.
However.....IF an imperial player then attacks that group TEF person, that timer voids out and he immediately goes to declared overt status. You are basically transferring the first attack right from the GTEFer to the other side, which is how it should be.
In EVERY other TEF instance you penalize the undeclared covert as being the recipient of a first strike (which is 100% appropriate). GTEF should be no different.
I suggest a new faction standing be created called Discovered Covert.
Any covert that actively attacks an overt without being directly attacked by that overt gets this standing. It lasts for 12 hours, can only be removed by a pvp death from an enemy faction member. There is a 1 hour cool down at the 11th hour where no pvp is allowed,they canonly defend themselves. If you initiate attack on a player (IE you were not their target and assist a friend who was the target) you get another 4 hours added with another 1 hour cool down at the 3rd hour.
A discovered covert can declare if they wish but they keep the discovered covert standing timer. If they get killed in pvp while declared they can lose the special standing as normal.
Basically if they are going to act like overts, make them play like it.
Another important thing to do that can slow them down. Before they can initiate attack on an overt a dialog popup that spawns in random locations will show up. They have to click the yes button which could be on the left or right sidebefore they caninitiate the attack. Also put in a random counter they do not see before they can attack and it gives thema message every few seconds in the combat spam window telling them they will be able to attack soon. This random time should be based on size of group they are in, the larger the group the longer the timer before they can initiate an attack on an overt. So a group of two would have a 5 to 10 second timer. While a group of 20 would have a 15 to60 second timer. And it is random in that range for each player, that way overts have a chance to pick them off as they turn red. And yes when they agree to the attack through the option they go red to overts and then must hit one of their attack keys or keep spamming it to the client hoping for themselves to be able to attack soon.
The whole goal being to stop people who are actively engaging in pvp and doing it covertly. Covert is there basically for pve and those that want limited pvp and they should always should be on the defensive afraid to be discovered.
Another option is to totally take out the ability for coverts to attack an overt, they can only defend themselves if they are the target of an attack. You could also make it that anyone in a group with an overt get's overt status but you have to work out the details on warm up and cool down times for this as well.
Thunderheart wrote:
When you say "revenge TEF", what do you mean exactly? What is happening when you get one of these and how do you think it works?
- That really disturbs me, TH. I can't believe you don't know whatrevenge TEF was. Clone rushing, due to that TEF bug,was one of the biggest problems with thePVP system for months after release.
To be honest, "TEF" and "Covert" has no place in this game or any other game. There should never be a situation where someone can, at will, turn their PVP on and back off again within a matter of minutes. I mean, come on... after a whole YEAR of seeing nothing but grief situations evolve from this system, can you honestly still say "Oh Covert and the TEF is a great PVP design system."?!? My god people, track your PVP exploit reports better!
My suggestions:
- Use the Overt flagging system that is used by the Imperial Crackdown.
- If you are Covert and do something that would gain you a TEF under the old system, bam! You get flagged Overt and have to visit recruiter and wait an hour to switch back.
- If you are Covert and group with an Overt, you get turned to Overt too. I mean come on,ifsomeone sees you running around with a "known" Rebel...
- Cloning: After cloning, you should be"groggy" for the same amount of time as you are when Rezzed. Increase "grogginess by another minute for each death within a 10-20minute period. That would cut down Cloner rushing a lot in Player Cities.
- Cloning to NPC facility doesn't turn you Covert. Being "groggy" and unattackable fo XX minutes means you'd better not hang around. The "groggy" increases with each death should prevent exploitation of rushing from Cloner and attacking repeatedly.
OnlyMaestro wrote:
What people need to understand, GTEF is huge -- there aren't enough places, nor enough ways to get overt fast.
The BEST PvP action is on the fly...people see a couple overts, and more start to gather. Large-scale planned PvP events whever everyone knows a week in advance to be overt leads to hordes of people making lag a major issue.
I disagree. The best pvp action is in base raid that is planned. The best battles with 50 imps and 50 rebs that last for hours I have been a part of have been about bases and organized groups. If you are going to fight other players go overt and run overt. There is no excuse, especially if 90% of the group tef's in. It wouldn't be a big deal if it were only 1 or 2 people but often it is the other. There is no excuse if you are defending a base, just type /declare while near it and you go overt.
Learn where to go overt. Find those back room rebs if you are rebel and remember where to go if you are imperial. There are cities each side passes through for many reasons. It works pretty well.
If you want to roam randomly and just kill people go overt, there is no on the fly pvp action you should be initiating while covert.
Another problem with PVP is the 3 incap and decay. It is pretty common in pvp to have people incap you three times to send you back to the cloner with decay on your items. Sometimes the goal is to keep you down so you are unable to come back, other times it is merely they like the thought of you receiving armor damage.
Gaenjin wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
When you say "revenge TEF", what do you mean exactly? What is happening when you get one of these and how do you think it works?
- That really disturbs me, TH. I can't believe you don't know whatrevenge TEF was. Clone rushing, due to that TEF bug,was one of the biggest problems with thePVP system for months after release.
To be honest, "TEF" and "Covert" has no place in this game or any other game. There should never be a situation where someone can, at will, turn their PVP on and back off again within a matter of minutes. I mean, come on... after a whole YEAR of seeing nothing but grief situations evolve from this system, can you honestly still say "Oh Covert and the TEF is a great PVP design system."?!? My god people, track your PVP exploit reports better!
My suggestions:
- Use the Overt flagging system that is used by the Imperial Crackdown.
- If you are Covert and do something that would gain you a TEF under the old system, bam! You get flagged Overt and have to visit recruiter and wait an hour to switch back.
- If you are Covert and group with an Overt, you get turned to Overt too. I mean come on,ifsomeone sees you running around with a "known" Rebel...
- Cloning: After cloning, you should be"groggy" for the same amount of time as you are when Rezzed. Increase "grogginess by another minute for each death within a 10-20minute period. That would cut down Cloner rushing a lot in Player Cities.
- Cloning to NPC facility doesn't turn you Covert. Being "groggy" and unattackable fo XX minutes means you'd better not hang around. The "groggy" increases with each death should prevent exploitation of rushing from Cloner and attacking repeatedly.
The only problem I have with the groggy is that battles will be cut very short. And defense needs more support to defend themselves, which is right now cloner rush. I don't know how many times on base defense that I get the call and go without buffs because there is no time. That is pretty much a 1 to 2 hit kill for most pvp'ers as well as my own weapons causing incap from ham costs, especially after one death and food unusable. With groggy better defenses need to be there so that players can buff up and prepare to defend. It is pretty true that almost all attackers will be buffed, because they have the surprise. Otherwise you might end up with few groups placing bases and only focusing on attack as that is the easiest way to suceed.
Another problem. Character's need to last longer. It isn't much fun to run out there and be incaped in 2 hits, and then might as well give up because you can't play anymore. You don't want to hear, "Let them take the base, it isn't worth it anymore." Or, "That sucked what's the point I can't even hit them." That is a total turn off to pvp, right now with cloner at least people who don't have the templates can still participate.
Also, typically you will have more artisan soft professions defending as those are the people online at the time of the attack. Again the offense has the advantage and receives easy kills for the most part.
Message Edited by DrakeWindwalker on 06-22-2004 08:55 PM
jimcabtv wrote:
Bah, lol...everyone seems to be ranting about the same thing, group tef...but I have a new problem, that just doesn't seem right at all...hopefully it's a bug, but we shall see. So I was on a rebel hunt with imperial buddies from different guilds. We met up with 2 people that were involved in a guild war....the rebel was just getting killed for fun while my bud was doing the killing...no overts at all, just guild war stuff. So one person goes and heals therebel, not knowing the guild war was going on....and at that time both imperials started attacking each other....it was more like **edit**? Are they dueling? No...they weren't...something called a guild war TEF, and what do you know, I was able to target and engage another imperial. So complete insanity ensues, we all pretty muchkill each other...a couple rez's later, a group of overt rebs find us, and pretty much kill us all. So the guild war TEF pretty much ruined the night of good rebel killing fun...so, devs....is this typically "supposed" to happen, or is it a bug?
I'm confused on this.
Are you saying you were grouped with coverts of different alignments? And something caused the group to get agroup tef?The only thing I could see is thatthe faction rules over ride guild war rules. Not sure guild wars even work right as so few use it so it probably really hasn't received much feedback.So if you heal a reb and you are animp you get the reb TEF flag, which would allow imperials to attack you and since you imperial you could attack each other.Guild wars should probably be removed, I see to many confusing elements to them especially combined with the GCW. It seems it would only work wellin context of neutrals fighting each other but doesn't fit well with the GCW focus.
Having rebs fighting rebsand so on just doesn't seem to fit with the theme of the overall game. Not sure it is even worth investing time in that. Might want to see whatother players think but I personally have no use for guild wars. I get more than enough pvp with the GCW.
Thunderheart wrote:
caddelite wrote:
Get rid of GTEF... bring back REVENGE TEF!
Here is a great example of somethingthat has taken on a life of its own in the game.There is no such thing as a "revenge TEF". This is a game mechanic that wasn't put in the game specifically, but it has taken on a life of its own.
When you say "revenge TEF", what do you mean exactly? What is happening when you get one of these and how do you think it works?
It may have not been put in as a feature, but it was a long-standing bug. The bug was stagnate for so long in-game thatpeople assumed it was by design.That's why people think they know "how it works" - because that'show it did work for quite some time; this took a "life of it's own" for a very good reason.
In case you really don't know :
The "Revenge TEF" refers to the phenomena of being killed in PvP, cloning, and being able to target/attack whomever killed you (even though you have cloned Covert). And no, it wasn't the group TEF in disguise - it happened when solo, although a variation worked in conjunction with the group TEF for even more complexities.
The person you quoted was simply suggesting that this "feature" be put back in; i.e. the unintended function restored. It doesn't matter what you want to call it offically - the collective conciousness of the community has termed it as the "Revenge" TEF because revenge is exactly what it allowed you to do, but semantics of this level don't really seem terribly relevant.
As to the current TEF system, you are trying tosatisfy two groups of players you will never be able to simultaniously please - those who think there should be danger in the game, and those that insist that all PvP be "consensual". There is really no way of undoing the mistake of proclaiming "only consensual PvP!" so long ago,and have paid for it dearly because it's really only partially true in the first place, andnot to mention that you haveactually even recentlyactively added things into the game that were the direct opposite(/citywarn). Even though /citywarn was quickly removed, it wasdeveloped and added to live play, which shows a willingness on your part to implement features that aren't strickly "consensual"- not that the entire concept of a TEF doesn't violate it from the get-go.
TEF is like Apprenticeship XP; APis a great idea to encourage players to work together and to gate master boxes, but did you guys really intend people to be selling AP at Starports by teaching Ranged I a couple of dozen times?TEF, like the AP requirement, in practice it just isn't working out the way it's intended, at least in the eyes of the players.
As is being evidenced in some of the Smuggler Revamp threads, the absoulte core of this issue is that you guys are trying to run the ship in two polar opposite directions at once. You lost that small segment of players who wants total FFA PvP before we even went live just based on the game design, and the TEF was intended to bridge the gap between the other two categories of players left 1) those that aren't for FFA PvP but think that actions should have consequences and that as long as the player knows ifthey commit a certain action in game will result in PvP it's OK to make players vulnerable, and 2) those players who refuse on principle to ever be held accountable for in-game actions that lead to PvP and react violently when they think they might be exposed to it in any shape or form.
Just like the players who never even bought this game because of the limited PvP, the second group that never ever wants PvP already doesn't like TEF at all. The first group above, those that think given proper game mechanics PvP is acceptable (like /citywarn - you had a time limit to remove yourself from the city before you were exposed to PvP), are the only ones that it seems TEF is designed for yet most find it terribly limiting.
I'm not a big PvPer at all - but if I am exposed to it due to my own choices in game I think that is perfectly acceptable, as long as I know how to prevent it (not doing whatever action leads to it) and know what actions will lead to PvP exposure. In the case of Smugglers, the suggestion of a Smuggler being put on a BH terminal if they fail in attempting to remove a Jedi from one, is a great example. If you don't want to be exposed to PvP, don't try to slice a Jedi off a terminal. Just like if you didn't want to get a TEF from /citywarn, youhad the option to leavethe city.
These things make the game so much more dynamic and exciting - heck, I'd love if building a certain type of droid would get me on a BH terminal, what a load of fun and adventure would that be! I'd learn my lesson right quick, though if I didn't care for the PvP- if I didn't want to get on a term, I'd have to modify my behavior. It's a choice I am free to make. The issues at the heart of TEF are that you are going to alienate the "CONSENSUAL ONLY!" crowd inherently with any TEF system; the responsibility lies in your hands to make the game a true "war" enviornment for those people that have been begging for it. Without risk, the GCW will never reach any if it's unlimited potential. Give the other players an option forsomething to do - but don't deprive the rest of us of the "multi-player" part of this MMO.
AO