PVP!

[Isen]

It seems a lot of fighters have left Avalon over the last, erm, 10 years.  Sure some of them just wanted to attend to real life, or found another game they liked, but I think a lot of them were discouraged by the priority balance issues and bugs are given.

So, if you're one of those players - for instance i assume you're one of them, demosthenes - would you care to talk about particulars?  What sorts of issues did you want to see addressed? What would it take for you to return?

Personally, I wish he would hire a team of coders.  I think a regularly "patched" world would expand the player base and recover the costs of a development team.  Intermittent interest and player input and testing isn't enough.

Now, i'm not saying that avalon pvp is lame. I prefer it to the alternatives, but it kills me that avalon could have a crazy cool pvp system with just a little more love and affection.

Also, can we go easy on the protection issues?  Yeah the array of protected statuses is annoying, but if i see another discussion about it i'm going to gouge out my eyes.

[Narissa]

Avalon's admin does not act professional. Genesis runs the game as a hobby, HIS hobby, and tends to plough ahead with changes that he thinks would be nifty, regardless of player need/want/input.

The last 2 years have seen tons of changes, but many of them were not something anyone asked for, nor did they really seem to improve the land. Excessively complicated systems only have further removed players from the grit of straight combat, and the disablement of the war system for such a long time removed reasons for fighting. Add in the absurd globe stuff, and you can't even hold a stone war as an excuse for PvP because of conquistador. Combat tended to be either something sprung from harvest conflict, felling, or boredom. When you've played the game long enough, you don't really fancy fighting the same battles against the same people every day. It gets old.

I know warfare is back now, in a new, far-too-complex way. Maybe I'll come back after my time off and play again and learn the system. I, personally, became burnt out. Genesis' style of "administration" puts a lot of work back onto the players - we're not junior admin, yet as Narissa, I found myself doing a lot of duties along those lines, such as writing rooms, quests, bugtesting, etc.
 
In a way, it's special: Avalon has a real community feel that other, more professionally run, games do not have. I, personally, just needed a break from it. Plus, I got a PS3.

[Sabrelon]

Heh, now I can completely understand your absence from the land. And i don't mean any sarcasm from this. I've had a Ps3 Since they've launched and if i wasn't so lazy and got the damn thing up on PsN I probably wouldn't play Avalon anymore myself.

[Narissa]

Well, that and Thakria backstabbing me. It's never one thing, eh?

[Ender]

There really isn't that much wrong with PvP in Avalon (or wasn't in my day).  All of Narissa's points are completely valid and I agree with those which I've experienced personally.  However, I don't think any of them are really a 'show-stopper'.

Avalon PvP is crazy hard-core, and if you want you can theory-craft why.  Characters in all RPG system (with levels, skills, equipment etc) have a 'Meta Level' which basically a weighted sum of all the elements which factor into the 'power' of every character.  You can break the Meta Level down into very small units, but to keep this simple I'll group everything into only three (Level, Items and Player Skill).  Let's compare WoW and Avalon and see why I'm more likely to play WoW.

World of Warcraft:
Character Level (including skills)= 60%
Equipment (assuming character level is equal) = 20%
Player Skill (assuming above are equal) = 20%

Ok, like all good statistics I've made them up on the spot.  But I think we can all agree that character level (and it's implications on equipment you can use) has the most significant impact on your characters 'power' in WoW.  Followed by Equipment and Player skill.  NOTE:  These numbers are based on PVE in WoW rather than PVP, but I suspect they are not too different (maybe player skill is a little higher %).

Now, Avalon:

Character Level (which is really just skills in Avalon) = 20%
Equipment (potions, magic items etc) = 10%
Player Skill = 70%

NOTES:
Importance of character Level varies from class to class, and I'm also assuming you have the core basic skills: fullparry, fullignore, breakfree etc.

Equipment is VITAL in Avalon, but it is also accessible to everyone very easily (yes I am including basic herbs and poisons) - all it takes is a little time to be completely equipped at ANY level.  So, theoretically this is higher than 10%, but I am assuming that we've all covered the basics like potions and magic items.


So, what can you draw from these numbers. 

Firstly, getting your character 'powerful' in Avalon tests the player differently than WoW does.  A powerful WoW character primarily weighted towards character level, then equipment, then finally player skill.  Taking each of those in turn:  character levelling in WoW generally an easy and safe experience (depending on your server type), you invest a little time and you get a predictable reward out it.  Likewise, getting equipment is fairly easy and gives you a fairly predictable benefit for the effort you put in.  As for player skill, in PvP it is a lot harder, the skills you gain from levelling up are not that relevant so you have to invest a lot of time and energy without being sure that you'll get any better.  It's actually hard.  But thankfully (apart from at the HARDCORE PvP level) player skill doesn't count for that much and you can always, easily, go an stop on someone who doesn't have good gear or doesn't have a high level character.


Avalon on the other-hand is different.  Give me character with 520 health, 1 Ult to spend as I like, 10k in gold, a friendly lore-master and a dishonest ranger and I'd kill 90% of the currently active players.  To compare with WoW that's like saying 'Give me a level 20 character with all green items and 100 gold to spend at the AH and I'd be able to fight in Level 80 Arena'  - which is a joke.

So what?  Well... this is the fundamental reason why PvP in Avalon both less and more appealing than in other games. 

APPEALING:  It is more appealing if you happen to be 19 years old, a student, at university, studying a course which doesn't interest you, where it is OK to spend 70-100 hours a week playing a game.  It is OK if you can mentally, emotionally and physically invest around 50 hours a week, for 6 months doing little else other than practice combat with no assurance that you'll 'succeed' at the end.

LESS APPEALING:  It is not appealing if you are not the above person (or some version of them).




The short version of this post is "Oh, I don't have time to play any more."
The slightly longer version of this post is "Oh, I don't have time to play as much as I would need to if I was to be as good as I would want to be, in order to feel a sense of achievement".

And to answer your question "Demosthenes..." "...What would it take for you to return?"  I would say if I lost both my job and my fiancée at the same time, I'd be back in a heartbeat.

[Narissa]

Very fair assessment. However, I work full time, date, party, etc, and still have no problem starting a new MUD, with a complex combat/economic/political system, whereas Avalon doesn't hold as much interest for me. Then again, I'm far more cavalier about it, knowing I won't be the "best" - whereas as a young Narissa I aimed for it (and arguably achieved it, on some level). Time investment is a very real reason, as is burning out on the effort required to stay on top.

Kudos for a good breakdown and analysis.

[Narissa]

also...in regards to the PMs I've gotten, because I don't want to have to repeat this to everyone...

*derail* ...I have NFI what happened in Thakria. Just logged in one day to find myself questioned by 4 people, one of whom couldn't even technically question, because he had ragequit the city/rejoined 3 days prior (aka Jammond, who obviously had Genesis' support in this, who also was the one who replaced me). It's not the stepping down that sucked - after nearly 3 RL years in office (and 2 attempts to retire already) I did not mind. It was the fact that nobody even spoke to me once (or even after the matter, 2 months later), and through it all, I was treated like a traitor who had been seriously harming Thakria or something. That stung, considering all I've done for the city. I was denied an honorable retirement (oh, I did my best and posted some rubbish about how I had been waiting for someone to show the initiative to replace me, but...still. I'm human), and was deposed as if I was some unstable and dangerous leader.

*/derail*

[Algernon]

Thakria for ya.   

[Sabrelon]

Hey Hey, that's not all Thakrian's at all. I just read the Bulletin and assumed she was fine with it. If i'd known otherwise i'd have said something. I had figured that someone talked to her about it at some point or another, and i didn't really want to bother people with my opinion on the matter.

[Every Seer in Avalon]

To Narissa:

Alarmingly, I feel for you. Shame to hear it ended that way, I guess.

It's ever-so-interesting that any player should get to leave a lasting legacy, given the way we all leave... Disgruntled, bored, or elbowed out. 

[Meerkat]

It just became a chore for me to log in, so eventually I stopped logging in and just let myself fade out. Eventually, I unsubbed and have been happily raiding and hanging out with friends in WoW.
I agree with everything Ender said, by the bye - Avalon isn't for those that don't have the time and/or energy to invest. Time and energy I just don't have anymore, although it *is* highly amusing that I still hear from various people from Avalon about my supposed seconds. *chuckle* I pay 15$/month for WoW, compared to 25-30$/month for Avalon - there's no comparison or room in my budget for me to singlehandedly populate a small town, let alone a city!
However, this doesn't seem to be that far off the mark. I wonder how I managed to leave a mark the first time I left (when this apparently happened as well), and again this time.
To wrench this rambling diatribe back on topic - the PvP in Avalon, despite being text-based, is more immersive and colorful than in any other game I've played before. It's just not enough to keep my interest in combat alone, and I've never been one to enjoy the softer side of Avalon. I love the combat, but there just has to come a time when enough is enough and it's time to leave - were there ever to be a resurgence in the playerbase, I might come back just to pester the new crop of players; but until then I'll just let Meerkat fade away. He's not needed anyway.

[Svar]

To Narissa: I think you have the wrong idea about why some of us questioned you. I for one respect you immensely for all that you've done for the city but assumed that since it was rare to see you in the lands that it might be time to allow for a new leader to try their hand at controlling the City. I have also yet to hear anyone I respect bad-mouthing or trying to belittle all that you've done for the city.

[Dunccan]

Cept for Ender, None of you are people i'd consider elite.

Sorry but Avalon is the most complex pvp system I have seen in any game.

Re-Avalon Light Globestaves and whatnot.

Narissa, you, your input your whining changed so many things that made Avalon alot lighter. Immunity to shirolos upon res made people harder to strip. This was implemented the day after I took your pack off you. For someone who loved to beg whine and screech till you got what you considered an imbalance changed you have a huge set of balls complaining about Genesis. Before you I don't recall him ever paying as much attention to any mortal. Your screeches got most of the usefull skills in spirtualism changed.

Your lasting legacy will be one of ranting ragefilled tells when losing, then posting some well thought out post with correct grammar expressing "the detriment to the game of getting your ass beat". If your post doesn't get you anywhere you start complaining to Apollo and Genesis, and because you are good with the PR they listen to you.

Then you complain about the very system that helped you get all the buffs to the skillset that let you defeat people you couldn't earlier (not me ofcourse I'll spank you any day you wish wagering anything you wish).

Sure this is a personal posturing rant but I've read through about 100 of your self gratifying hey hey look at me i'm the queen posts that putting you in your place.

Dunccan

[Kresslack]

It seems a lot of fighters have left Avalon over the last, erm, 10 years.  Sure some of them just wanted to attend to real life, or found another game they liked, but I think a lot of them were discouraged by the priority balance issues and bugs are given.

So, if you're one of those players - for instance i assume you're one of them, demosthenes - would you care to talk about particulars?  What sorts of issues did you want to see addressed? What would it take for you to return?

Personally, I wish he would hire a team of coders.  I think a regularly "patched" world would expand the player base and recover the costs of a development team.  Intermittent interest and player input and testing isn't enough.

Now, i'm not saying that avalon pvp is lame. I prefer it to the alternatives, but it kills me that avalon could have a crazy cool pvp system with just a little more love and affection.

Also, can we go easy on the protection issues?  Yeah the array of protected statuses is annoying, but if i see another discussion about it i'm going to gouge out my eyes.

While it would be nice to have a formal Team of Coders, Avalon's scripting is unique and built from the ground up, which means people have to be trained in it. It's also very touchy, and not generally something that many people have access to. You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement just to look at it.

I think that if Avalon were to go Free Play, and charge for in-game credits to be used to convert to lessons or buy special items, and advertise more, as well as update the site, that it could blow up, in which case there would be a lot of differant types of people, and most of them would more or likely be attracted to the fighting aspects of the game, like many people that play games are.

[Bifrous]

You're kidding, right?

Take a moment to think on how this would change the overall atmosphere of avalon. I don't think many people care for the "roll new character, procure 10000 lessons, get ults" type of person, as it is.

As a player, I don't think the volume of IRE-style players who'd be pulled in would be worth it.