How Blood Guard does Lodi

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by HippoNipple [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Item loot doesn't work in Velious because of too much no drop gear.

I never cared if you got loots from PVP, it was about the fights more than anything.

I started on RZ, went to SZ, then to Zek. Never in the whole time did I lament later on that you couldn't loot gears.

[sereal]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is why Nihilum was top guild for so long, it was the marketing genius of their recruiters.

Nihilum/Red recruitment video on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydjnPheTIhQ

If Cylocke and other Red recruiters really want Red to succeed and are serious about recruiting, I suggest they create some entertaining recruitment videos like this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeSyf6TD3qY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btcRj6vF1Hg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuhKeABevtg

rofl they really took recruitment seriously... It almost makes me want to play on red.

[sereal]

Originally Posted by Rygar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I played on Red during Live (Rallos Zek), talking early RZ when they can loot your weapons. Even after disallowing weapon loot, item loot was a huge barrier to entry. Worked my ass off to get a bronze breastplate on my warrior, got like nuked out in the karanas before my group knew what was up and some naked wiz or whatever loots my BP (probably right into a bag, so retribution is impossible).

It was super stressful and in the end I gave up and joined a blue server, made it to maybe level 34 on a human warrior. I had some fun times hunting griefers in the early levels around crushbone and steamfont, but it got annoying as you progressed and your item values increased.

Other guildies that played zek recalled melee's bagging their gear when their HP started dropping too low. No Drop loot for melee's was real hard to come by early.

Maybe item loot helps in the situation you're describing (at the end game), but I think it would make a huge barrier to entry for new players. Even twinking a character will be tougher (no fungis, haste, crafted / dropped armor sets would be safe). Maybe a hybrid of allowing item loot only 55+ (if you the killer are 55+ and the slain are also 55+).

I still think this presents balancing problems, people at the top as you say will stay at the top with better no-drop items (haste, big resist pieces, etc) as the lower levels try to claw their up in junkier gear.

I mean you could also play a mmo that was designed for PVP like darkfall.... After folks realised tasos couldn't lift they sold the IP to two companies https://www.darkfallriseofagon.com/ https://darkfallnewdawn.com/

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by sereal [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeSyf6TD3qY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btcRj6vF1Hg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuhKeABevtg

rofl they really took recruitment seriously... It almost makes me want to play on red.

You have to admire their dedication to their craft. 100% unapologetic!

Yes, if these newer Red supporters had the balls to do something like these recruitment videos Little Gyno and crew did back in the day, we might see some new life emerge on Red p99!

I want to see Swish, Baler or Cylocke rub chocolate syrup and whipped cream all over their bare chests and guts while dancing to a retro 70s song.

I might try Red then.

Might.

[HippoNipple]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I never cared if you got loots from PVP, it was about the fights more than anything.

I started on RZ, went to SZ, then to Zek. Never in the whole time did I lament later on that you couldn't loot gears.

It's not about being able to loot their gear but if the person with the upper hand is risking nothing and the peon is losing their gear for losing a fight they can't win it is no longer fun.

You can basically lose gear up until you are BIS and then everything is no drop once Velious hits. It takes out the skill in PvP and makes the people who raid hardcore too powerful.

In an emulator with lower population you would feel this much more than you did back on live when there were a lot more players at your level. It wouldn't be like that on Project 1999. A server like that would be very top heavy with a lot of grief towards new players.

[Daldaen]

Add item loot.
Add a No Drop destroy function. Instead of being able to loot one item, you can select one no drop item to destroy
Add Bag loot function. You loot the bag and destroy any no drop items in said bag when looting it.

This should fix red for sure. People can't hide behind bagging their items, and can't hide behind no drop geared toons.

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by HippoNipple [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's not about being able to loot their gear but if the person with the upper hand is risking nothing and the peon is losing their gear for losing a fight they can't win it is no longer fun.

You can basically lose gear up until you are BIS and then everything is no drop once Velious hits. It takes out the skill in PvP and makes the people who raid hardcore too powerful.

In an emulator with lower population you would feel this much more than you did back on live when there were a lot more players at your level. It wouldn't be like that on Project 1999. A server like that would be very top heavy with a lot of grief towards new players.

For whatever reason the population is low on Red, and this is the biggest issue. There's no way to fix this at this point.

Not enough plebs will start fresh on red now, so the uphill battle is and will always remain impossibly steep for anyone wanting to try red.

Even if someone manages to get to 60 on red, the dismally low population again is an issue, because it's not much fun fighting the same 10-20 people.

It's not much fun raiding and gaining gears only to not have any real guild wars etc.

The problems Red faces are so multifaceted and deep it's simply an impossible battle to fight, that being making red populated and a fun place for people who enjoy larger scale PVP fights.

It really seems best for people who want uncontested raid mobs, and a faster PVE leveling grind.

I actually am surprised no hardcore PVE raiders do not go to Red for this purpose. If one major raid guild or large group of players migrated to red, perhaps that would bring others too.

Red pilgrims could always adopt the political system that RZ and Zek had, the mentality that PVP was bad and only guild wars were to be allowed.

The players themselves implemented this system, and enforced it heavy-handedly branding anyone that randomly attacked others as a PK, whereas the 90% of other players called themselves "Antis" which was short for anti-player killers.

Anyone branded a PK was subjected to shunning and ostracized, not allowed to join any of the major raid guilds.

This kept 90-95% of the players in check and removed random ganking. Persoally I hated "antis," and I felt they ruined the server by NOT allowing PVP on a PVP game. I was not the majority though in this thinking, as antis were far more common than PKs.

[HippoNipple]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

For whatever reason the population is low on Red, and this is the biggest issue. There's no way to fix this at this point.

Not enough plebs will start fresh on red now, so the uphill battle is and will always remain impossibly steep for anyone wanting to try red.

Even if someone manages to get to 60 on red, the dismally low population again is an issue, because it's not much fun fighting the same 10-20 people.

It's not much fun raiding and gaining gears only to not have any real guild wars etc.

The problems Red faces are so multifaceted and deep it's simply an impossible battle to fight, that being making red populated and a fun place for people who enjoy larger scale PVP fights.

It really seems best for people who want uncontested raid mobs, and a faster PVE leveling grind.

I actually am surprised no hardcore PVE raiders do not go to Red for this purpose. If one major raid guild or large group of players migrated to red, perhaps that would bring others too.

Red pilgrims could always adopt the political system that RZ and Zek had, the mentality that PVP was bad and only guild wars were to be allowed.

The players themselves implemented this system, and enforced it heavy-handedly branding anyone that randomly attacked others as a PK, whereas the 90% of other players called themselves "Antis" which was short for anti-player killers.

Anyone branded a PK was subjected to shunning and ostracized, not allowed to join any of the major raid guilds.

This kept 90-95% of the players in check and removed random ganking. Persoally I hated "antis," and I felt they ruined the server by NOT allowing PVP on a PVP game. I was not the majority though in this thinking, as antis were far more common than PKs.

Current Server

I agree there is nothing that can be done to make Red99 better. If a new raiding guild migrated to Red99 they would be smoked no matter how good you think they are. Item loot or any other rule change on Red99 isn't going to save a Velious locked PvP server this late into the game.

RZ and Zek mentality

It wasn't the players that adopted some amazing code that made a tough system manageable. The rules made dieing very harsh so players banded together out of fear. It was the server rules that made the community what it was. There is no penalty for death on Red99. People don't care if others get killed because it isn't a big deal. Guilds aren't looked at as PK or anti-PK because killing someone isn't bad on that server.

Red99 Launch

Red99 had a lot of things go wrong at launch but they had exp penalty with PvP death. I don't like that system as much as item loot but it did at least create guilds with personality. There were griefer guilds and anti grief guilds. The population tanked for all sorts of reasons:

Top guild banned

Guards not assisting and people being griefed within minutes of starting their character

Rampant cheating and exploits that made everyone that didn't utilize them once they were fixed feel cheated

Classic level exp on a server that badly needed increased exp rates with PvP making leveling harder

150-200 population is actually great for a PvP server in classic-kunark but during Velious you really need 300-400 to make it fun. Red99 isn't going to hit 300-400.

[sereal]

Sounds like red would benefit with a relaunch every so often. Give new folks a chance to start on a even playing ground and give new and old folks a chance to race to the top.

Honestly if they relaunched red and kept the nice xp modifier I would jump on and play for a bit.

On the rule set, there are probably some interesting things that could be done in raid zones such as harsh unrecoverable (via res) xp losses.

You could do some stuff to mitigate no drop stuff - depending on what it is, tie it to a pp value and have that drop instead, or return it to the mob it came from - and it would become a guaranteed drop (and let the server know this target now has some extra loot) Maybe for certain classes like casters have a potential of losing a spell.

Probably shit ideas.

Also, changing all the rules would be pretty 'unclassic' though so at that point you might as well make a totally new PVP server locked to velious?

I never played PVP on LIVE - are the issues Red is experiencing the same sort of issues LIVE had?

[HippoNipple]

Originally Posted by sereal [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sounds like red would benefit with a relaunch every so often. Give new folks a chance to start on a even playing ground and give new and old folks a chance to race to the top.

Honestly if they relaunched red and kept the nice xp modifier I would jump on and play for a bit.

On the rule set, there are probably some interesting things that could be done in raid zones such as harsh unrecoverable (via res) xp losses.

You could do some stuff to mitigate no drop stuff - depending on what it is, tie it to a pp value and have that drop instead, or return it to the mob it came from - and it would become a guaranteed drop (and let the server know this target now has some extra loot) Maybe for certain classes like casters have a potential of losing a spell.

Probably shit ideas.

Also, changing all the rules would be pretty 'unclassic' though so at that point you might as well make a totally new PVP server locked to velious?

I never played PVP on LIVE - are the issues Red is experiencing the same sort of issues LIVE had?

During this era it wasn't an issue because the PvP servers were either item loot or hard coded teams. They also didn't have the issue with the server being stuck at Velious 4 years after launch with a very small population.

Trying to make everything classic with awful timelines, locked progression and a much smaller population is a huge fail. Someone that has some good insight on potential effects of certain server rules needs to make good judgement calls on some custom rules.

Unfortunately the few with good insight are rarely the same few with the means to code and create the servers. P99 has done a good job of keeping their judgement out of it and just trying to copy what was already done back in 1999. All the other servers where devs have made custom rules and content have been awful so who knows if that balance of classic and custom will ever be done correctly.