TehRoach

Well as the game is 3D and progresses through time, I assumed the Tesseract was a fitting representation. However, as you see it as a one-dimensional line or spectrum and are unwilling to bring the conversation up to my level. I thought it might be easier to bring it down to your level

IMO there is a productive side to this conversation and yes it does also highlight many negative stereotypes of PVP. Even though PVP has gotten some bad rap since the introduction of voxel games, PVP in can still be a very rewarding experience. For instance in a voxel based game. What truly are the differentiating factors between grieving someone's base or raiding it? IMO not much, as I am essentially destroying someone else's work and stealing all their stuff! Maybe the difference is the player's focus or mindset between the two? ie. If I wanted to grief someone my main focus would be on the detrimental effects inflicted on the other player. But as PooJam points out; there is a point in game progress, where the main focus in raiding someone is to simply punish them. For PVP to be rewarding it needs to be well balanced. However, currently PVP tends to heavily reward some playstyles and penalise others. ie a nomadic style player will tend to bounce back and may not even feel any effects of being raided, while a builder style player will really feel the burn. But as 7DtD is a voxel based game it really lends itself to attract the builder style player base. Hence IMO any changes made to the PVP should probably reflect this. IMO the idea I presented is not going to solve the PVP problem, however, discussing why it could and why it won't and why other ideas are better, might.

Ok then just to be sure. How about you describe this spectrum?

You mentioned earlier that the game shouldn't be "little league". So how your game suppose to get out of the little leagues without attracting players that arn't little league? A statement without an explanation? or A sign that your argunment is light on substance? But am I missing the point or are you yet to see the Tesseract? IMHO Nothing! But for the people that do it, they obviously get something. Maybe because they know that if they let those new spawns progress to their level, they would probably lose in a fair fight. So they use the games mechanics to the best of their abilities to maintain a stacked playingfield. For my self I feel the same as this. I tend to get board with no challange, as the rewards for winning are directly proportional to the chances of losing. but some people need to win and preffer it when they have no chance of losing. You are probably right the raider does pay the ante. but plaese excuse me because 7DtD isn't poker. LOL so to correct my self in the poker analagy. While yes you are right the raiding player(s) do pay some ante. However, in an offline raid the defending team is doing the equilivant of going all in before the cards are delt and then heading to the bathroom for the rest of the hand. Hence the ante still heaverly favours the raiding party. You could say the same for mining on some of the alpha builds, why should this game choice/risk be removed? Getting shot in the back on a raid, LOL Sounds to me like they are just not paying attention! or Are simply not use to competition during a raid! I will reffer to the idea of positive competition vs negative competition, progression and the relative idea of strength. Negative competition - the strong are considered strong in that for relative comparison their competition is weak. Energy is spent on oppressing the opposition and not focused on building strength, this results in a negative or backwards progression to the community. Positive competition - All entities build on their strength, the base line continues to gain strength and the best are the best because they are the strongest. Firstly the idea of "rare" deminishes the closer you get to infinity. As 7DtD's random gen is an attemp at the unlimited, I can't really see the difference. Duping in a game like this is only bad if it is instant! If viewed without the scales of time and effort the concept of duplication is fundamental to the programmed workings of the game. Therefore as long as enough time and effort are involved the problems of duplication can be eliminated. Does it? or Are you still only seeing the single point in the Tesseract?

What is a computer game without Maths? And what is maths, if you cant manipulate it to your likings with stats? LOL I think even if ultimately the score board did nothing, if it contained your above mentioned stats and a few(many) extras. A scoreboard might help you find people that play more like yourself and to this end make your game more enjoyable. ie "hardcore" players finding lots of other "hardcore" players to refine their "hardcoreyness" etc. But I think the possibilities of implementing a database of this sort could have much more potential!

Isn't the point to come to an understanding? Your "apparently" doesn't seam to be as apparent as you think! You seam to get "mind boggled" very easily so maybe it is too difficult for you to rectify the misunderstanding and explain yourself with out contradiction?

That is why I said Maybe I should have replaced the "you" with "devs" for claraty. In regards to the Drew Caery show this is absolutely correct, but that is because the Drew Carey crew are taking the piss out of game shows in the name of comedy. In this example the score doesn't matter as the overiding aspect of comedy is the prime purpose. However in every other game show and basically every sport the score board is a key factor. In Sports, aids in setting the fixtures ie - minor leages teams play against other minor leages teams - AAA teams play against other AAA teams - major league play against other major league teams - etc and presents a way that the top teams from each league can advance to the next tier league. (I would look at Soccer for the best representation of this) For me this is like saying when I was a kid and got my first remote control race car. Yes I was king of the block, cause no one else had one! but when the kid two doors down got his own, did I stop playing with mine? No of course I did not! In fact it was the most fun when pretty much every kid on the block finally got their own. This part would not change in my idea would not change, the rewards in this scenario would be the same as they are now. and OK yes our definition of what "being the best" may differ greatly. But tell me how this is better than spawn camping a bedroll? Because to me this sounds more like the survival of the least oppressed, rather than the survival of the fittest. The raider never pays an ante when the owners of the base are offline. PS arn't you still just "little league" even if you can beat everybody in little league?

Sorry! but I think there has been a miss communication between what I thought I wrote and how you understood it. These questions to PooJam were more for me to understand his actuall position on the subject. To help engage in conversation and help either convince one another or atleast understand the others position. This it is not the firt time you have has quickly dismissed and idea, only to run around the bush and contradict yourself in response. Correct me if I am wrong, but haven't you just stated that almost all AAA PvP games are "not very exciting" As you state that PvP in early 7DtD was "not very exciting" because "you would suffer no other penalties" and a "level 1 could kill you with a headshot" yet CoD or BF a level 1 player can quite easily kill a level 100 player, death has zero impact or penalty. or If you are infact arguing that 7DtD's PvP was not very exciting when it followed a formular similar to AAA PvP games and I am arguing that I would preffer that 7DtD's PvP chose a different path than AAA PvP games, are we not infact agreeing on similar/same things? So then why does that make my ideas "dumb" and "playstyle restrictive" while yours do not?

Yes and maybe, this is why I added the "restoring all/most stolen items" clause. It wouldn't take much to keep a data base of who has stolen what from who or put caps on the potential size of re-embercements. It is only meaningless if you make it meaningless. Let me get this straight. You don't actually find any reward from the loot itself? The only Reward for you is the fact that you have weakened your opponent? I don't know about you, but for me the idea of being the best at something is because you are the best, not because you are able to keep all the good competition in a cage where they can not compete! being the best should be about improving yourself above your peers. (forward progression) not just reducing your peer to below your level. (backwards progression) Sorry but this is a game, it simply is always going to be "little league".

PvP VS Tower Defence I have a few spare bucks to throw around so I might as well throw in my 2c IMHO PvP should not be a priority for 7D2D. PvP is the games weak point yes! But this is overshadowed by all its other stronger and more desirable characteristics. I believe that this is a very important point to be made. In the majority of PvP games all players are online for the duration of the game instance (barring dropouts, rage quits etc.) 7D2D is a very different animal in this regard. -Barring Private Servers, No one player is online all the time that the server is running. -There is not intermission between potential battles. -Maps are dynamic; often with alot of hard work and time, added by the player base. -Voxals while awesome, have definate drawbacks to offline base defence. As light describes, most raidings will take place while the majority of players are offline, so why concentrate on the actual PvP side of the game when it is only a minority part. The game was suppose to have a tower defence aspect to it, and I believe that tower defence mechanics could also be used to solve most PvP problems. However I would have to dissagree with this statement. There is a difference between something that is hard and something that is pointless! Yes preempting every possible entry point in a voxal environment is mind staggeringly endless, but setting up traps and kill points to let NPC's and online alies man while you are away (Sleeping/Working/Living in RL etc.) could be quite fun, especially if something like HAL's editor was implemented into vanilla. However I would go to the extreme of also restoring all/most stolen items to remove the penalty for having a life outside of the game. Instead implement some sort of raiding score system, Not only would the raiders be rewarded with the loot they stole but they would also score points against the group that they raided. Then once the offline player came back online their base could be restored to its former glory and they would be advised that their clan had losed x number of points to the raid by y clan.