Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[T-888]

Maybe Jovanka doesn't see player interaction as important to the quality of the game.

Most players sit in encounters, shoot scorpions and the game is fine to her ...

[Nice_Boat]

If understood this, the scrub term applies to competitive players who go apeshit when someone uses "cheap" tactics. I think it actually applies mostly to our "pro" PvP players who keep whining about swarms, bombers, trolls and so on.

Yes and no. The constant PvP-related whine (and the fact you guys did a fair share of knee-jerk nerfs and buffs) is scrubby as hell. Nevertheless, there's a whole lot of non-PvP players who think that TC is "cheap" or "dumb," and yet they are very ambitious when it comes to setting their goals. Even worse, they think they're somehow better because they avoid the best way of achieving them. That's way more scrubby, because the whining PvPers at least understand how the game works, while the Mad Max wannabe completely misses the point.

For example, some players fancy themselves the best medics in the wastes, build tanky characters and use FA/doc to heal other people during PvP without risking losing their stuff, and yet they completely miss the fact that they could help even more dudes by joining a PvP faction, getting a share of the TC loot and using it to help the poor and those in need.

It doesn't make any sense to apply this term to a bunch of invisible guys who just hang around together and shoot scorpions with their hunting rifles once in a week. They have different kind of fun.

How so? Are you saying they don't care whether they succeed at killing scorpions or not? Why do they even hunt scorpions? Isn't it to gain more influence, get more caps, get more and better stuff and, ultimately, win? I bet my ass those players would rather be successful and wealthy than poor and dead.

If you still try to apply the concept of a "different kind of fun" after reading this article, you obviously missed this part:

Let's return to the group of scrubs. They don't know the first thing about all the depth I've been talking about. Their argument is basically that ignorantly mashing buttons with little regard to actual strategy is more "fun."

[JovankaB]

Maybe they have different goals, if the goal is to farm 20 gatlings to have something to shoot other apes on the evening PvP it's understandable to exploit the shit of encounters as fast as possible. If hunting is a way to hang around together with friends in a game in non-competitive manner, it just doesn't work like that. You don't have to do the stuff in the most effective manner, because it's not what matters.

T-888, if you watched the videos I linked to, you would see that the low level newbies actually visit the unguarded towns, mines and other unguarded locations, even though there isn't much to do in them. Maybe it's you who are the Loch Ness monsters who emerge from the depths only on evenings to do the PvP

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

Where is action these days?
Forum and IRC.

surprisingly im still banned from #2238

[Kilgore]

For example, some players fancy themselves the best medics in the wastes, build tanky characters and use FA/doc to heal other people during PvP without risking losing their stuff, and yet they completely miss the fact that they could help even more dudes by joining a PvP faction, getting a share of the TC loot and using it to help the poor and those in need.

Well, I would consider someone doing that as a scrub.

*pats Jovanka on the back

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster

Here, a link for you, because you seem to not know the story behind Loch Ness monsters 

[T-888]

T-888, if you watched the videos I linked to, you would see that the low level newbies actually visit the unguarded towns, mines and other unguarded locations, even though there isn't much to do in them. Maybe it's you who are the Loch Ness monsters who emerge from the depths only on evenings to do the PvP

That's until they realize when there's nothing much to do in the game at all.

[Giftless]

Keep in mind I'm not trying to insult anyone, it's just a simple fact that the game is extremely unbalanced and PvP players have more influence than a person doing any other activity can ever hope to achieve. If you want to be a peaceful trader, well too bad - you're going to earn more doing TC, you lose the competition. If you want to run a protection/mercenary business - nope, out of luck, any bored group of PvP'ers is going to do that better than you. If you want to be the industrialist - nah bro, not going to happen, the PvP gangs have the logistics to raid the facilities with more efficiency. Even if you want to farm stuff and do PvE, you can rest assured that the despised PvP apes are doing it more efficiently.

It's possible to do pretty well as a trader or industrialist; sure it isn't on the 'unlimited resource" level of the pro-TCer, but I consider never having to make extra alts such as thief, BP hunter, or slaver a form of success in its own right.

All in all, the devs really should consider buffing other activities, outside the TC sphere. Buff farming, buff trading, buff production - allow people who put some time and effort into those aspects of the game to become more effective than TC gangs in their field of choice. Right now, people who win at TC win at everything else. Introduce some other ways of winning, but don't do that by nerfing TC - do that by expanding the gameplay mechanics and adding some alternatives. The current "you're good at fighting, you're good at everything else" model sucks and makes people who could become influential traders or industrialists hunt radscorpions and hide in their caves doing meaningless quests.

I dunno about buffing item production per se, but it would cool to be able to buy influence with factions which would lead to unique gear. Imagine if stat or skill bonuses were attached to armor; you'd have to wear them onto the battlefield. They're be reason to grind for gear if it would actually allow you to beat the guy who put no time in for outfitting their character.

[BenKain]

"Loch Ness Players", that term just makes me laugh. You 'srs pr0s' always seem to forget the painfully steep learning curve. Don't get me wrong, I don't consider that to be a bad thing, it is part of the reason I am drawn to this game. But one of the first lessons of someone trying to "come up in the world" is to avoid players because most of them are trolls or greifers. Again I say, go to the Hub, hand out some leather jackets and hunting rifles, help them out. Show them that not all the apes are mean trolls, maybe teach them a thing or two. When they think to themselves, "Man I could really use some good 'ol pew-pew.", they are going to call you, and bam! you have new PvP players. Like fucking magic. Also the hardcore "pl@y 2 w!n" mindset is exactly why you have so many people who can't break into the PvP scene, and you are constantly complaining about the "Noobs" who craft and Hinkley.

I think it is great players are learning to build their own tents and crafting there, but I agree that we need some more reasons to leave the crafting bench. There are a couple of really fun PvE quests that require an organized team to complete. Please give us more! and make them repeatable! Ares is a great idea, and should have more PvP/PvE dual groups, make the loot better and I'm damn sure it would become that. The Tanker is great, I think that should be a stalwart model of how quests should work, and I wantz maor!
 
Traders, Medics, and Scientist should have more of an effect on TC, but I really don't know how that would be implemented.

[Nice_Boat]

Maybe they have different goals, if the goal is to farm 20 gatlings to have something to shoot other apes on the evening PvP it's understandable to exploit the shit of encounters as fast as possible. If hunting is a way to hang around together with friends in a game in non-competitive manner, it just doesn't work like that. You don't have to do the stuff in the most effective manner, because it's not what matters.

A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is "boring" or "not fun." Let's consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play "for fun" and not explore the extremities of the game. They won't find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. (...) Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. (...) Let's return to the group of scrubs. They don't know the first thing about all the depth I've been talking about. Their argument is basically that ignorantly mashing buttons with little regard to actual strategy is more "fun." Superficially, their argument does at least look true, since often their games will be more "wet and wild" than games between the experts, which are usually more controlled and refined. But any close examination will reveal that the experts are having a great deal of fun on a higher level than the scrub can even imagine. Throwing together some circus act of a win isn't nearly as satisfying as reading your opponent's mind to such a degree that you can counter his ever move, even his every counter.

Can you imagine what will happen when the two groups of players meet? The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they've either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter.

Yeah, you completely missed the point. The hilarious part is that:

The experts will absolutely destroy the scrubs with any number of tactics they've either never seen, or never been truly forced to counter.

... Loch Ness players know that. That's why they're Loch Ness players in the first place. Actually, their "play to win" instincts are what keeps them from socializing with other players - from their perspective, it's a high risk endeavor with no short-term gain. If they don't socialize, they can't join a gang and do TC. If they can't do TC, they run into a wall and can't advance any further because there's nothing that could increase your influence, wealth or whatever it is they want. So they get frustrated and quit without making any impact on the game. At least, that's what I believe is going on here.

[T-888]

That article is WIN!

[Tomowolf]

Sadly I read what Nice_Boat wrote, and.... this is right.
Why do we - players-testers have to go many times around this, to change something to have more fun and make it balanced?
I'm not just whinning, but - how many topics must be written to change simple things that are already in game, and do not need thousands of lines of code?

[Wichura]

Locations:
- 16 characters were in NCR,
- 13 characters (mostly BBS+COA) were in what looks like a TC town
- 10 characters (mostly Hawks) were in what looks like another TC town
- 4 characters in another public location (Hub or VC?)
- 10 characters in different public locations,
- 29 characters on worldmap
- 85 characters in generated locations (might be a tent, a base, or an encounter)

Conclusions:
- 10% are NCR idlers,
- less than 20% are active TC/PvP factions,
- the whole rest - casuals who only craft and go on PvE hunting

So, there is absolutely no reason to make a conspiracy theory.

How does now look like this mumbling about PvP players being a majority? :>


Nah, it's not funny anymore. I'm kinda shocked with above numbers. I mean I knew 2238 condition is bad, but didn't realise it's that bad.

[DeputyDope]

Buff farming, buff trading, buff production -

buffing farming means there's more items in the game, which means there's more fun. not gonna happen.

[JovankaB]

Well... I win if I have fun, because it's my goal in the game - to have fun. If I don't get fun in the game, I simply press exit. I pretty much only play FOnline the way to have fun most of the time, for the smallest cost, so I almost always win. Perfect winning strategy for me. And yea, it's cheap You can go butthurt about it you scrub

[Kilgore]

I mean I knew 2238 condition is bad, but didn't realise it's that bad.

Bad how? The game is being played, though probably not in the way it was intended to be played.

I mean, you could basically release single player version of 2238 and move half of server's population there and nobody would notice anything.