I just wanted to mention that though I liked my character concept and felt fairly deadly most of the time, the painful lack of foes led to serious boredom and eventual deletion. Yes, the Fort had a lot of people, but the real problem to me is something that has always been there - too many neutrals. And with lower numbers it seems like the swings have a hard time recovering when suddenly there is an influx of neutrals. It keeps things stale, imho.

I understand playing neutral appeals to a lot of people. This isn't about starting crap with anyone for liking that approach. That being said, I can't help but imagine a game where all the neutrals were forced to choose good or evil. Man, I think we'd all have a lot more fun and it would lead to a much more exciting game.

I realize that's extreme and would not happen.

However, I think it might be worth taking a look into limiting neutrals. At last glance, Nexus had the most, or second-to-most members. I guess I always pictured them as a rather elite, small group (like Scion, but without the Evil(tm)).

Also, Battle, Outlander, and Tribunal all draw neutrals predominantly (I know I'm going out on a limb saying that, so feel free to correct me with some statistics).

I could drone on for a while about how I think neutrality would be the rarest of conditions, but I'll stop with a brief re-cap:

Please experiment with limiting numbers of neutral characters. Perhaps make them have less appealing gear choices, less cabal options, racial number limits, etc. Anything! Maybe just try it for a while and see how much the funstick improves. If nothing else, it might be an enlightening exercise!


Just a (not so tiny) request from an old timer. Thanks for reading.

...gnome shifters. They usually bring nothing to the table in form of RP, they usually are just "murder" hunters, they take nothing to rank (can be heroes in a day or so), and usually have no restrictions/requirements on anything they do. If any single combo was the easiest "throw-away" character, it has to be these shifters.

Not sure exactly how to fix this but maybe make them only allowed to shift into tiny farm animals

But I think a big part of that might have been the build your character picked.

Fort just isn't designed to deal with neutrals in any way shape or form. When you combine that with the massive Fort/Nexus numbers and the deletion of two really big, competent leaders in the fort opposition cabals...

It ends up being the Fort's biggest foes now are the Nexus, which they are really ill-equipped to fight, since they have to deal with both inherent RP -and- PK restrictions. A lot of Fort powers just aren't that useful against Nexus, and a lot of Nexus powers are expressly designed to work very well against Fortress when Fort is in power.

It also doesn't help that whenever Nexus is outnumbered by fort, they just wait around, without needing to really do much. Few if any Forties will actively hunt them.

When Nexus outnumbers Fort (or gains some other advantage), they just stroll right in and roll over everyone in their way, and Forties die by the dozen.

<i>I could drone on for a while about how I think neutrality would be the rarest of conditions<i>

That is just a matter of how you slap the alignment tags. It could also be the most common condition or as common or as good or evil. This is illustrated below. Real people aren't that polarized, so you could claim that good and evil should be rare conditions with the population being predominantly neutral.



<i>Please experiment with limiting numbers of neutral characters. Perhaps make them have less appealing gear choices, less cabal options, racial number limits, etc. Anything! Maybe just try it for a while and see how much the funstick improves. If nothing else, it might be an enlightening exercise!</i>

I think that limiting neutrals is a bloody stupid idea that would not improve funstick in any way. Goodies aren't supposed to be the most bloodthirsty alignment out there. Play evil if you want more targets to kill.

Some MMO games are offering bonuses when you register and begin play for the weakest side.

For example, there are three races: A, B, C.

A is dominating, B in the middle, C is the weakest. If you register for A, you won't get anything. B - maybe a little bonus. C - great bonus that is definately attractive.

How can it be done in CF? It's not difficult at all. You can see a total number of good, neutral and evil players in the high ranks (42 to 51). Filter inactive. See which alignement and ethos is dominating and which is weakest.

What is important for CF players? Exp!

You give lifetime experience bonus to the player if he is registing for the weakest side. Maybe it's 25% (good enough!), or maybe even 50%?

It can be even smarter. There are very small amount of neutral evils? Give neutral evil 5% more exp bonus. And etc.

As a result, we will have:
1. More balanced world because of the player's picking up weakest combos;
2. They will level up quicker and fill hero range quicker.

Is it dangerous for the game? I don't think so. Wil ithelp players (especially new or not very experienced)? Sure.

If imms see risks here, i'd like to have feedback on that idea.

>You give lifetime experience bonus to the player if he is
>registing for the weakest side. Maybe it's 25% (good enough!),
>or maybe even 50%?

Most obvious problem: alignment and cabal balance varies wildly by play time.

I can remember times in which people were bitching about Imperial dominance and Fort dominance on the same day, and depending on when you logged in, they were both right.

I generally play for 10-14 hours at a time if I am playing a serious character, this gave me amazing insight into the general playerbase, and more specifically power swings. Just one or two people with some pk skill/good rp skill can act as a focal point and you will see mini swings around their presence. Other people will even log in at odd times to play with those characters, causing a greater swing for that particular ethos/align.

Having a good deal of detects in place and watching the Fortress Hour, Ended by the Tavlin log on, Then a few hours later all the evils log on. (Less so depending on how long Tavlin (scion) was awake). This would happen to a lesser extent with outlander also. After the Nexus mass induction, you have a lot of people trying to find their feet, and a group of noobs can also act like a lodestone, more people wanting to play with them.

I do agree that the number of neutrals is a problem in general, but I also agree that being a Fort in the current set up restricts your pk during swings. You've played the times you know light swings, roll up an evil and have fun.

LoL at Morin chasing the empire through time trying to catch the empire hour

a

Splntrd

I played all over the place, as far as times go. Goodies and neutrals dominated exclusively.


Trust me, I can, have, and will do the evil route again. But, that almost seems like the easy solution to a larger issue (at least, to my perception).


But yeah, tools to track alignment-based login trends could really help people decide what to play and when. It would be cool if there were some kind of "ticker" page for CF stats, accessible via this official forum.


Thanks everyone for the input. I guess I'll go kill everyone with something evil. Remember, you all said it was a good idea

a

Splntrd

tie exp bonus to nexus powers? G/C is tipping then E/O will see a bonus to exp, amplified all the more when in pk range of it tipping?

I understand some people might not want that bonus.

In fact I implemented something like this several years ago, around the time of neo-Nexus.

But because I'm not helpful like Zulg and possibly a sadist, it's not announced as such when you get XP and I probably didn't even put it in a helpfile anywhere.

Have you considered making this affect some degree of stronger?

Splntrd

I had not.

I probably should add some logging at some point to determine how much it's even doing. I think it amounts to about a 20% boost in the best of times.

Other things I threw in at the same time that someone probably should add to one of the XP helpfiles: there's a similar effect for Battle and mages, and caballed characters get a (fairly small, I think on the order of 5%) boost/penalty for killing things that are easily identified as cabal enemies/allies. E.g. Battle gets a small bonus more than anyone else for killing mage casting stuff, Outlander gets a small bonus killing enemy races, Tribunal gets a little less XP for killing stuff that attacks criminals, and so on.

Edit: If it's not already clear, I have severe CF-coding ADD. It's not uncommon for me to get a little idea, put something in, and then completely forget it exists until someone mentions it.

Always wonder when some days I get like 100exp from mobs, and another day I get what feels more like 200.

you'll never receive a case of beer for work untold and unapparent. It'd be really neat to see that breakdown in the experience pecho upon killing a mob or through use with the bonus command.

Lastly, is 35% still the max? If there are 10 people on the mud and the 35% bonus is in effect, and scales tip, I would not receive an additional bonus right? I'd like to, though, but you know me...

Do you think most players decide what to play, and when, based on current power swings? Or do they tend to just roll whatever they want, independent of whatever might be going on in-game?


I never really consider what's happening in-game when I make a new character. It seems to me like things would be pretty random if everyone did that, but maybe not. I really don't know.

I think some people consider what's in power and others don't.

Speaking for myself, when I was in college and had a lot more time to play, I would usually roll whatever I perceived as losing because I could get a new character leveled up fast enough to take advantage of it. Now that I have less time I pick a little differently.