Game ideas

[Valenore]

i just dont think pvp is very good in arctic. 

This is the right answer.  Arctic is a low skill cap game as far as actual character control goes.  That is an unfortunate and inherent restriction in it being text based.  There is no spatial movement to consider and most combat can be boiled down to deciding every second or two between one of 3 or 4 reasonable actions.  That is why it is so easy to script a good bots for Arctic.  That is also why "arena" or "tournaments" in Arctic aren't as fun.

Instead, the advantage in Arctic is driven by resource acquisition (gear/spells/ranks).  Resource acquisition in turn is driven by play time and game knowledge (with game knowledge also being derived from play time).  The more time you spend playing and the more you know how to do, the more gear and spells you will have.  Once you have a competitive advantage, you can compound that advantage by using it to limit other's resource acquisition by limiting their play time. 

In the "good old days", this wasn't as much of an issue.  There were many more people playing creating a hierarchy you could climb through.  There were not nearly as many options of other games 20 years ago.  No group limits allowed the potential to fight back against dominant groups which often had less players.  The allure of gaining another players equipment and the panic of losing all yours was more fun when you were 17 instead of 37.   

Now most people who want to PvP are going to play a skill based game and are content seeing some ranking go up or down as they win or lose based on how good they are at the game and not whether they played the 5x as much as the other person.
P

[Kir]

i just dont think pvp is very good in arctic. 

This is the right answer.  Arctic is a low skill cap game as far as actual character control goes.  That is an unfortunate and inherent restriction in it being text based.  There is no spatial movement to consider and most combat can be boiled down to deciding every second or two between one of 3 or 4 reasonable actions.  That is why it is so easy to script a good bots for Arctic.  That is also why "arena" or "tournaments" in Arctic aren't as fun.

Instead, the advantage in Arctic is driven by resource acquisition (gear/spells/ranks).  Resource acquisition in turn is driven by play time and game knowledge (with game knowledge also being derived from play time).  The more time you spend playing and the more you know how to do, the more gear and spells you will have.  Once you have a competitive advantage, you can compound that advantage by using it to limit other's resource acquisition by limiting their play time. 

In the "good old days", this wasn't as much of an issue.  There were many more people playing creating a hierarchy you could climb through.  There were not nearly as many options of other games 20 years ago.  No group limits allowed the potential to fight back against dominant groups which often had less players.  The allure of gaining another players equipment and the panic of losing all yours was more fun when you were 17 instead of 37.   

Now most people who want to PvP are going to play a skill based game and are content seeing some ranking go up or down as they win or lose based on how good they are at the game and not whether they played the 5x as much as the other person.
P

If arctic is so low skill pvp then why do we not see any low skill players getting kills in pk? it takes years to become a skilled arctic pvper lol. You can be top tier in any fps game or moba in months. I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate

[el conquistador]

o

[Lloth]

"If arctic is so low skill pvp then why do we not see any low skill players getting kills in pk? it takes years to become a skilled arctic pvper lol. You can be top tier in any fps game or moba in months. I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate"


A. Low skill players don't participate in PK in Arctic
B. It takes a lot of natural talent to become top tier in any FPS/MOBA game
C. All of this boils down to Game Knowledge

The 'skill cap' is so high in Arctic because of the game knowledge/mechanics people know and understand. I don't necessarily think PK is hard in Arctic, more precisely, it's not hard when ambushing unsuspecting groups of players. Once both sides know there is a fight happening, then it comes down to game knowledge and prep, when/where to fight and when/where to hide.
I'm not saying it's easy or hard, it's just peoples willingness to translate their game knowledge/mechanics to wanting to PK which a lot of people just don't want to do anymore.

[el conquistador]

yeah i think there definitely can be a lot skill in planning/executing an attack against a dangerous prepared opponent in world pvp.  but the actual combat....

i used to successfully pkill all the time!  in haven forest and the palanthas graveyard.  and it definitely did not take a lot of skill.  it only took unsuspecting low level opponents, overwhelming force, and the willingness to be a complete asshole.

and sadly that is how almost all pvp in arctic is imo.  its very rarely a boxing match between two skilled opponents.  its more like a much bigger kid beating the shit out of some scrawny nerd and taking his lunch money.

[Valenore]

I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate

Plenty of "low skill players" have had tons of "kills in pk" over the years.  Those kills were against equally (or lesser) equipped and leveled characters.  I would imagine (at least back when there was a larger player base) most people have experienced their lower ranked/spelled/equipped alt being killed by some character that they then stomped with their main character.  I have certainly been on both sides of that situation.  Did that same player somehow have "lower skill" on their alt or did the gear/spells/ranks they had with their main make a massive difference in how effective they were in PK?

The problem is you are still conflating "skill" (difficulty in the actual act of controlling your character) with game knowledge/playtime. 
It takes years to gather the game knowledge to effectively know how to collect gear, spells, and ranks. 

I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate

Yeah, that is just silly.   The actual combat part of Arctic (especially PvP) is just simple scripting.  If you are a decked out mage, what do you do in PvP?  It is a simple decision tree:  Heal yourself if you have prep and are low health, stand if sitting, otherwise cast your most effective area spell.   If you are a warrior, what do you do in PvP?  Punch/Bash the highest threat caster (or whatever target you may have).  And so on...

What is so high in Arctic that makes it impossible for most to participate is the gear, spell, and rank cap... at least when we are comparing your average player to your diehards.

You can be top tier in any fps game or moba in months

Exactly!  Because it is skill based and not based on how much time or specific game knowledge you have about a particular game. 

[Kir]

I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate

Plenty of "low skill players" have had tons of "kills in pk" over the years.  Those kills were against equally (or lesser) equipped and leveled characters.  I would imagine (at least back when there was a larger player base) most people have experienced their lower ranked/spelled/equipped alt being killed by some character that they then stomped with their main character.  I have certainly been on both sides of that situation.  Did that same player somehow have "lower skill" on their alt or did the gear/spells/ranks they had with their main make a massive difference in how effective they were in PK?

The problem is you are still conflating "skill" (difficulty in the actual act of controlling your character) with game knowledge/playtime. 
It takes years to gather the game knowledge to effectively know how to collect gear, spells, and ranks. 

I'd argue that the skill cap for pvp is so HIGH in arctic that it makes it impossible for most to even participate

Yeah, that is just silly.   The actual combat part of Arctic (especially PvP) is just simple scripting.  If you are a decked out mage, what do you do in PvP?  It is a simple decision tree:  Heal yourself if you have prep and are low health, stand if sitting, otherwise cast your most effective area spell.   If you are a warrior, what do you do in PvP?  Punch/Bash the highest threat caster (or whatever target you may have).  And so on...

What is so high in Arctic that makes it impossible for most to participate is the gear, spell, and rank cap... at least when we are comparing your average player to your diehards.

You can be top tier in any fps game or moba in months

Exactly!  Because it is skill based and not based on how much time or specific game knowledge you have about a particular game. 

Ok again, I am talking about high level pk. You are not so its apples and oranges. Yes any moron can script a group of bashers together and kill somebody or mages can spam prism\nightmare. That is not how high level pvp works in any way, shape or form.

If you go to high level pk with bash triggers or stand prism scripts you are losing 100% of the time. High level pk is the hardest thing to pull of in arctic mud. You have 3 seconds per round and 2-3 pages worth of spam to decipher and then make a decision for your next action.  Its 8v8 (used to be 10v10 and 12v12) chess with a 3 second move timer per person. You can bring scripts to pk yes, but you cannot bring scripts to high level pk and expect to win and if you think so then you have obviously never won a large scale battle vs a real opponent. There are so many facets to high level pk but the problem is there are only historically 10 or less players who have ever played the game that are intelligent enough to have a grasp on it.

I would never bring somebody on scripts to a pk. Just for an example: Basher on scripts: sets pk target with bash triggers... Now what if that person is also hasted and stands and flees. What if that person is a healer who took the white robes hardbash or nobash items and you're just sitting their missing bashes being completely useless. What if your target is a black robe and fluke made you bash your own healer. What if the enemy brought an unknown healer who is just free casting but your group doesnt have anybody to bash him bc everybody is scripted? what if a paladin is guarding your bash target? what do you do then? these are just a few examples that I came up with in 1 min of scenarios I have seen in this game. I would LOVE to see somebody that braindead war RISE with a bunch of scripted pk chars lol. It would never happen bc the war would be over in 1-2 fights.

[Valenore]

I made the erroneous assumption given you were at least aware of the basic ideas of scripting.  I will admit I am not a great scripter, though I do find it fun since the interface for Arctic is so easy.  Here is my basic approaches to your "high level pk" scenarios, each of which is the exact action a human player would take.

Basher on scripts: sets pk target with bash triggers... Now what if that person is also hasted and stands and flees.

A 3rd grade level script would have a list of targets.  If the highest target on the list is not in the room (i.e. dead, recalled, fled) then you move to the next target.  A 5th grade level script would resume bashing that target if they returned to the room.  The same exact action a human player would take.

What if that person is a healer who took the white robes hardbash or nobash items and you're just sitting their missing bashes being completely useless.

The 3rd grade approach to this is if you miss 2 or 3 bashes in a row, have the script move to the next target in your list.  The same exact action a human player would take.

What if your target is a black robe and fluke made you bash your own healer.

The 3rd grade approach to this is the same as missing bashes... if you are attempting to bash a target and they aren't landing on that target you move to the next target.   The same exact approach a human player would take.

What if the enemy brought an unknown healer who is just free casting but your group doesnt have anybody to bash him bc everybody is scripted?

Wow!  Great point.  Why don't you have a script that makes the highest priority bash target in the room any player casting heal that isn't in your group.  While you are at it, you could even have it auto-prioritize other high impact spells like PWS or nightmare.  The same exact action a human would take. 

what if a paladin is guarding your bash target?

At risk of sounding like a broken record, the simplest way to account for that is if you try to bash a target and fail (or hit something different) a few times in a row then change to your next highest level target.  Now, since we are talking "high level pk" and not low level pk or even mid level pk, if you wanted to be really elite, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to parse the text for the various protection type skills/spells so you corrected the problem first go around.  The same thing a human player would do. 

these are just a few examples that I came up with in 1 min of scenarios I have seen in this game.

If this is the pinnacle of "high level pk",  I think you proved my point.  The character control and decision tree that goes behind it is simple.  You are right in that reading through a wall of text can be difficult though... if that is your definition of skill, you win.

Its 8v8 (used to be 10v10 and 12v12) chess

I think you may be being blinded by your greatness at Arctic.  Since you brought up chess and most people would consider it one of the purest games of skill (which is obviously only because most people haven't heard of "high level pk" in Arctic), maybe it would be more instructive to do a comparison.  I just described scripts that are trivial to come up with that play the game equivalent to a human.  If "high level PK" is like 8v8 chess, take a stab at describing the decision tree behind a fairly simple end-game chess board.   I have a King at F7.  You have your King at D3, a Bishop at G4, and a Pawn at H2.   Describe how to checkmate me...

[George]

If this is the pinnacle of "high level pk",  I think you proved my point.  The character control and decision tree that goes behind it is simple.  You are right in that reading through a wall of text can be difficult though... if that is your definition of skill, you win.

Reading through that wall of text manually is difficult, but, having a script parse it for you, pick out the important information, and taking actions based upon that input makes it REAL easy. I'd venture to say it makes it better, since the script won't miss things a human might.

[Kir]

Ok. Lets back up a bit. Your argument was that PK in arctic is low skill because people can make bash triggers and stand\prism triggers. I disagreed and gave several examples of why that does work. You then decide to to make a wall of text to explain how one could code all those scenarios into a pk script. I am not arguing the idea that somebody could or could not make a superior pk script that would be better than a group of top players. Everybody on this forum knows that given enough time, a coder could write a pvp script that would be the top pvpers. They did the exact same thing with chess... they wrote a program that can beat the world's best chess players. That does not make chess a low skill game. I dont fathom how one could argue that a hypothetical situation that has never happened invalidates player skill. So if and when somebody ever codes a "super pk bot" and a person uses it, I will agree that person could be low skilled. Until that happens I am going to contend that pvp is high skilled until I am defeated by low-skilled players. God bless.

I made the erroneous assumption given you were at least aware of the basic ideas of scripting.  I will admit I am not a great scripter, though I do find it fun since the interface for Arctic is so easy.  Here is my basic approaches to your "high level pk" scenarios, each of which is the exact action a human player would take.

Basher on scripts: sets pk target with bash triggers... Now what if that person is also hasted and stands and flees.

A 3rd grade level script would have a list of targets.  If the highest target on the list is not in the room (i.e. dead, recalled, fled) then you move to the next target.  A 5th grade level script would resume bashing that target if they returned to the room.  The same exact action a human player would take.

What if that person is a healer who took the white robes hardbash or nobash items and you're just sitting their missing bashes being completely useless.

The 3rd grade approach to this is if you miss 2 or 3 bashes in a row, have the script move to the next target in your list.  The same exact action a human player would take.

What if your target is a black robe and fluke made you bash your own healer.

The 3rd grade approach to this is the same as missing bashes... if you are attempting to bash a target and they aren't landing on that target you move to the next target.   The same exact approach a human player would take.

What if the enemy brought an unknown healer who is just free casting but your group doesnt have anybody to bash him bc everybody is scripted?

Wow!  Great point.  Why don't you have a script that makes the highest priority bash target in the room any player casting heal that isn't in your group.  While you are at it, you could even have it auto-prioritize other high impact spells like PWS or nightmare.  The same exact action a human would take. 

what if a paladin is guarding your bash target?

At risk of sounding like a broken record, the simplest way to account for that is if you try to bash a target and fail (or hit something different) a few times in a row then change to your next highest level target.  Now, since we are talking "high level pk" and not low level pk or even mid level pk, if you wanted to be really elite, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to parse the text for the various protection type skills/spells so you corrected the problem first go around.  The same thing a human player would do. 

these are just a few examples that I came up with in 1 min of scenarios I have seen in this game.

If this is the pinnacle of "high level pk",  I think you proved my point.  The character control and decision tree that goes behind it is simple.  You are right in that reading through a wall of text can be difficult though... if that is your definition of skill, you win.

Its 8v8 (used to be 10v10 and 12v12) chess

I think you may be being blinded by your greatness at Arctic.  Since you brought up chess and most people would consider it one of the purest games of skill (which is obviously only because most people haven't heard of "high level pk" in Arctic), maybe it would be more instructive to do a comparison.  I just described scripts that are trivial to come up with that play the game equivalent to a human.  If "high level PK" is like 8v8 chess, take a stab at describing the decision tree behind a fairly simple end-game chess board.   I have a King at F7.  You have your King at D3, a Bishop at G4, and a Pawn at H2.   Describe how to checkmate me...

[Dafin]

You have 3 seconds per round

Actually you have 4 seconds per round. Every good scripter knows that :)

[el conquistador]

i think there is definitely a huge amount of skill required in the planning stages of a high level pvp battle.  a basher does need to know who his good bash targets will be from a lot of scouting and preparation.  and no doubt the greatest players can adjust in the middle of a battle to unexpected circumstances much better than a weak player or even a script.  but i think in 99% of pvp it is not required.

i can remember seeing a log of a high level pvp battle.  im pretty sure it was from the pov of a rise mage even!  it stands out in my mind because i remember as the battle starts he spams 'nightmare' so many times that it says 'You can't remember how to cast that spell!' about 10x.  then he starts spamming tentacles.  it is hard to claim there is much skill in that.

in another log that i initially believed was incredible skill was a battle where a thief was somehow landing stabs on different targets almost every single round.  i was amazed that he could spot out of combat targets in all that chaos and so quickly land those stabs.  but when i thought about it some more, i realized even i could write a trigger for 'core is standing here.' = backstab core.  so all he really had to be doing was fade east;west

i have never been in a large scale pvp battle.  if kir says there is a high level of skill required for parts of it then i believe him.  but it is very hard for me to see it.

[Jorake]

Insert cancel command here. Single best thing this mu has done!

[Lloth]

Insert cancel command here. Single best thing this mu has done!

This is the real answer right here. I don't know how many times I 'cancel' in one play session. Personally I feel any script goes against the heart of Arctic and should be frowned upon. I manually alt tab, manually type everything on both of my characters. The only thing I have are aliases for spells. That's it.

[Anista]

This thread has been locked, due to it veering off topic many posts ago.