Watched the video you didn't leave warcraft, warcraft left you... up to 3:01, at which point I paused. The creator is about to argue that ganking makes the game better.
The reader may recall that in Update 23 Jun 2026, 22:57, I copied a comment that ended with a paragraph about ganking, whether it was a problem that needed to be fixed, and what the solution might or might not look like.
So it seemed I would want to say something about the video, but my plan is not to say anything to anyone, so I wasn't sure if I should continue watching it. I'm explaining this to show why I have made this post, which is about Demi Rose. Pausing the video meant that my mind was not distracted, and this is why I have things to say that relate to Demi Rose.
I'm not afraid to say that ganking killed Aion, even though I didn't really do any PvE content in the game past around lvl 32, when I started to PvP. There was a dungeon that had a female boss at the end, meant for players around lvl 35, and I remember commenting on a thread that I had never "met her" (instead of saying that I had never killed her). Many people play games exclusively for PvP contents, even if it happens to be a game like Age of Empires II that also has over a dozen high-quality solo campaigns based in history. It's reasonable that people would quit Aion because the PvP was bad due to ganking, and then later because there was no PvP as the solution that the developers put in place to solve ganking.
But I wanted to copy a post that I made on the WoW forums, because of the opening quote. It turns out I wrote a lot of different PvP posts:
find ~/text/2006-2008/wow -type f -printf "%T@ a %8s %Td %Tb %TY %TH:%TM %p\n"|sort -n|cut -f 3- -d " "
9948 16 Apr 2006 20:43 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP Rank~
9948 16 Apr 2006 20:57 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP Rank
6347 16 Apr 2006 21:57 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP Rank 2~
6347 16 Apr 2006 23:32 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP Rank 2
481 04 Jun 2006 20:43 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/thoughts on DKP system
2730 10 Jun 2006 14:22 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Warrior concept.txt~
2875 10 Jun 2006 14:53 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Warrior concept critique.txt
6538 25 Jun 2006 11:01 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/lemme kite things to cities on beta.txt~
6547 25 Jun 2006 11:03 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/lemme kite things to cities on beta.txt
610 03 Jul 2006 19:58 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/emotes.txt~
718 03 Jul 2006 20:20 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/emotes mage.txt~
3777 07 Jul 2006 00:47 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/city raids.txt~
3838 07 Jul 2006 00:59 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/city raids.txt
5711 22 Jul 2006 18:41 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP changes 22 July.txt~
5253 23 Jul 2006 09:28 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP changes 22 July.txt
42 24 Jul 2006 16:34 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/competition.txt
383 24 Jul 2006 17:14 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/DKP thoughts 1.txt~
416 24 Jul 2006 17:14 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/DKP thoughts 1.txt
27 25 Jul 2006 14:46 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/bounty system.txt~
81 26 Jul 2006 03:14 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/quotes.txt~
341 26 Jul 2006 21:42 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp thoughts 26 Jul
6620 27 Jul 2006 12:07 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Kazzak in SW.txt~
6622 27 Jul 2006 15:05 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Kazzak in SW.txt
3541 27 Jul 2006 15:15 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/token system.txt~
3547 27 Jul 2006 15:27 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/token system.txt
194 31 Jul 2006 13:36 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/compiled pvp changes.txt~
11390 31 Jul 2006 14:43 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/compiled pvp changes.txt
356 01 Aug 2006 19:48 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/forum notes 1 Aug.txt~
638 02 Aug 2006 19:27 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp thoughts 2 Aug.txt~
80 02 Aug 2006 19:28 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/quotes.txt
3410 02 Aug 2006 20:30 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/USE THIS ONE.txt~
1557 04 Aug 2006 02:16 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/unstupid notes, changes 3 Aug.txt~
1148 04 Aug 2006 19:03 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/wtf SN post gone.txt~
15851 06 Aug 2006 23:08 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/unstupid version of USE THIS ONE.txt~
15831 06 Aug 2006 23:19 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/unstupid version of USE THIS ONE.txt
15861 07 Aug 2006 14:54 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 7 Aug.txt~
15870 07 Aug 2006 14:56 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 7 Aug.txt
747 07 Aug 2006 22:04 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/wtf SN post gone.txt
16220 08 Aug 2006 18:13 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 8 Aug.txt~
656 08 Aug 2006 22:10 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/other suggestions 8 Aug.txt~
692 08 Aug 2006 22:43 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/other suggestions 8 Aug.txt
498 09 Aug 2006 23:59 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/emo PS 9 Aug PvP post.txt
16219 10 Aug 2006 10:53 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 8 Aug.txt
13914 11 Aug 2006 18:35 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 11 Aug.txt~
14048 11 Aug 2006 22:49 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP vers 11 Aug.txt
10722 12 Aug 2006 13:38 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 11 Aug.txt~
10744 12 Aug 2006 20:35 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 11 Aug.txt
10603 14 Aug 2006 23:36 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 14 Aug.txt~
10646 15 Aug 2006 02:57 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 14 Aug.txt
1248 15 Aug 2006 13:10 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/blood of innocents 15 Aug.txt~
1612 15 Aug 2006 13:25 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/blood of innocents 15 Aug.txt
11026 15 Aug 2006 21:15 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 15 Aug.txt~
11025 15 Aug 2006 21:29 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/post BC ann 15 Aug.txt
93 18 Aug 2006 05:35 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/friends.txt
34 18 Aug 2006 05:44 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Chinese lessons 18 Aug.txt~
56 18 Aug 2006 21:09 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Chinese lessons 18 Aug.txt
0 22 Aug 2006 11:46 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/frostbite bug 22 Aug.txt~
364 22 Aug 2006 11:49 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/frostbite bug 22 Aug.txt
3238 22 Aug 2006 17:40 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/ranks skill 19 Aug.txt~
3236 22 Aug 2006 17:41 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/ranks skill 19 Aug.txt
4708 24 Aug 2006 02:14 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp suggestion 23 Aug.txt~
4980 24 Aug 2006 03:16 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp suggestion 23 Aug.txt
5171 25 Aug 2006 14:06 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp suggestion 25 Aug.txt~
5169 25 Aug 2006 14:16 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/pvp suggestion 25 Aug.txt
71 27 Aug 2006 01:59 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Demonic.txt
41 27 Aug 2006 20:55 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/new servers.txt
605 28 Aug 2006 15:47 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/invisible.txt
2803 29 Aug 2006 00:54 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Divinity II dishonor.txt~
2804 29 Aug 2006 01:04 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Divinity II dishonor.txt
5500 16 Sep 2006 22:42 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Klinge.txt
820 12 Oct 2006 00:19 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/healing.txt
430080 28 Oct 2006 11:59 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Item Balancer 3.0.xls
3729 10 Nov 2006 17:15 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Battlemasters.txt~
3738 10 Nov 2006 17:44 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Battlemasters.txt
925 17 Nov 2006 16:06 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PUG discussion.txt
1664 21 Nov 2006 01:49 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Water Elemental.txt~
1663 21 Nov 2006 01:51 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Water Elemental.txt
2119 26 Nov 2006 04:53 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/healer gear.txt
666 29 Nov 2006 20:25 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/honor system.txt~
665 29 Nov 2006 20:25 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/honor system.txt
3057 10 Dec 2006 20:24 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP rewards.txt~
3144 10 Dec 2006 21:50 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/PvP rewards.txt
5559 13 Dec 2006 08:37 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Tae's Vision of PvP.txt~
5551 14 Dec 2006 10:32 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Tae's Vision of PvP.txt
3563 24 Dec 2006 09:16 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrids.txt
44420 25 Dec 2006 08:47 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrid data.ods
1841 25 Dec 2006 10:47 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrid calcs.txt
6909 27 Dec 2006 00:09 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/next honor system 26 Dec.txt
2189 01 Jan 2007 01:32 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/BG reward quests 26 Dec.txt
3019 10 Jan 2007 20:17 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/priests spec 10 Jan.txt
836 12 Jan 2007 18:55 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/holy priest 41 pt.txt~
980 12 Jan 2007 19:06 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/holy priest 41 pt 12 Jan.txt
718 12 Jan 2007 21:21 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/emotes mage.txt
1298 13 Jan 2007 01:34 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/honor system update 13 Jan.txt~
65 13 Jan 2007 02:00 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Yashe III music.txt~
1351 13 Jan 2007 11:48 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/honor system update 13 Jan.txt
1787 15 Jan 2007 03:33 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/priest 41 pt holy 14 Jan.txt
21009 20 Jan 2007 04:15 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/ranks 31 Dec.txt~
2664 23 Jan 2007 12:26 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/online identities.txt
21026 23 Jan 2007 20:25 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/ranks 31 Dec.txt
9693 23 Jan 2007 20:36 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrids 25 Dec.txt~
9698 23 Jan 2007 20:40 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrids 25 Dec.txt
8602 24 Jan 2007 16:55 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrid itemization 24 Jan.txt~
8594 24 Jan 2007 16:56 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/hybrid itemization 24 Jan.txt
7802 29 Jan 2007 22:12 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/ranks in chinese 29 Jan.txt
1950 17 Feb 2007 13:43 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/dmg and healing algorithm 17 Feb.txt~
1951 17 Feb 2007 13:45 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/dmg and healing algorithm 17 Feb.txt
2180 18 Feb 2007 14:05 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/conflict in wow 18 Feb.txt
35166 08 Apr 2007 04:58 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Scaling_Comparison.ods
1114 21 Apr 2007 05:41 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/world of gearcraft 21 Apr.txt~
1169 21 Apr 2007 05:42 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/world of gearcraft 21 Apr.txt
5162 22 Apr 2007 19:19 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/plight of the shaman 22 Apr.txt~
5162 22 Apr 2007 19:20 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/plight of the shaman 22 Apr.txt
8582 02 May 2007 11:05 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/risk vs reward 25 Apr.txt~
8702 04 May 2007 07:42 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/risk vs reward 25 Apr.txt
5378 21 May 2007 09:58 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/TBC endgame analysis 21 May.txt~
5604 21 May 2007 10:04 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/TBC endgame analysis 21 May.txt
68608 30 May 2007 09:09 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Scaling_Comparison_2.xls
5256 06 Jun 2007 13:52 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/to Paul Barnett 6 Jun.txt~
5256 06 Jun 2007 13:52 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/to Paul Barnett 6 Jun.txt
2643 10 Jun 2007 13:39 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/legend of the shaman ~12 May.txt
765 10 Jul 2007 15:20 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Yashe III, Yukano, etc music.txt~
793 21 Aug 2007 01:35 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Yashe III, Yukano, etc music.txt
18944 16 Oct 2007 01:58 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Rating.xls
133632 23 Feb 2008 17:55 /home/misaki/text/2006-2008/wow/Scaling_Comparison_2_rev_5.xls
The scaling comparison xls files at the end are by Muphrid, determining the spellpower needed to double various spells based on their coefficient and base damage or healing. The first files, from 16 Apr 2006, must have been just after I got my first laptop and saved documents that were stored in my email as drafts. I thought I'd copy the first one, 'PvP Rank':
[quote] [i]For Mei, who complained that PvP rank didn't do anything . . . ~.~[/i]
[i][b]HOW[/b][/i] do we rank up? For most of us, certainly those who manage to reach the highest ranks, it is by farming BGs—either solo and ungrouped for maximum honor per kill, or with a group of similarly determined and well-geared players for minimum time to finish a match. I don't know [i]anyone[/i] who reached HWL/GM by, say, playing BGs for fun, raiding towns and killing opposite faction city bosses, or hunting down griefers. That's the problem with the honor system, because things should be exactly the opposite.
So why aren't BGs fun? Already mentioned is the penalty for kills when grouped that discourages grouping and teamwork, and the ease with which practiced teams of epic-equipped hardcore PvPers roll PUG after PUG; both of these issues, as well as more obvious problems like the fishing exploit and win-trading, are addressed in the thread "PUG rolling and other common BG exploits" at [b]http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?ForumName=wow-pvp&ThreadID=464141[/b]. The lack of significant world PvP can be attributed to several factors
[li]too much honor from BGs, none from world PvP
[li]DHKs killed off town raids
[li]the emphasis on maximum honor per week, since the honor system only rewards you for [i]advancing[/i] in rank
BG honor farming and exploiting is, as stated, addressed in another thread. The fact that world PvP doesn't yield any honor is partly addressed by the "DR in raids" idea at same, and partly by the thread "Most Wanted List or, how to fix DHKs" at [b]http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?ForumName=wow-pvp&ThreadID=450331[/b] . . . which is about rewarding players who hunt down gankers with honor and, incidentally, how to fix DHKs and bring back town raids. The absense of benefits for simply maintaining your rank is the topic of the next section—
[i][b]WHY[/b][/i] PvP at all? This is a question many players are beginning to ask themselves for a couple different reasons. Hardcore players are complaining that with the new AQ loot, PvP epics just don't measure up. This will eventually be solved by upgrading the rewards at the expense of gear balance on future servers, but in the meantime, players who already hit GM/HWL have no reason to PvP at all and their rank is dropping in like freefall; they'll have to grind the ladder all over again with nothing to show that they've done it all before. Casual players, on the other hand, are complaining that the system offers absolutely no kind of progressive upgrades for those with limited playtime; and this is [i]not[/i] something likely to be solved by future reward upgrades.
These problems aren't new. Mass protests forced the devs, way back when the honor system was released, to remove the `rank maintenance' requirement for the use of PvP rewards; and the honor system has been broken ever since. Something needs to change.
[b]This is one way to do it:[/b]
Players would receive Honor Reward Points (ty Jacquelyn) based on their weekly PvP `rating' (the number that determines your rank) and their faction's PvP activity level. These HRP could, furthermore, be bought from and sold to the player's faction, but at a loss for the player. [i]([b]Example:[/b] 100 HRP could be exchanged for 70s could be exchanged for 30 HRP; the `70s' would be the stable price if the rate is varied so that net HRP flow is zero. This means that gold would be REMOVED from the economy, combating inflation!—But I digress...)[/i]
Each rank would grant access to [b]multiple tiers of PvP rewards[/b] which could be purchased with HRP (tangent: for the interface, could use a little icon that says, simply, `HRP', with mouseover of Honor Reward Points); players would, when compared to the current system, benefit from increased [i]vertical[/i], not [i]horizontal[/i], gear progression. So all this works against players with too much money being able to trivially buy epics on par with the best PvE drops in the game, because 1) gold to HRP exchanges would be heavily taxed 2) lazy players often suck at PvP and would never be able to rank up to gain access to these items in the first place. Which ties into the next section, but first there are some details that haven't been explored yet:
[li]newly introduced, high-end rewards would be listed as "in short supply" and would be marked up in price significantly until strategies for bosses that drop corresponding PvE gear are developed
[li]HRP could also be used to buy premium PvP consumables: potions, trinkets, and ammo that might only be usable in BGs, as well as noncombat `mascots' (for HWL/GM only?) and PvP-specific enchants
[li]won't be implemented by the time the expansion hits, so be ready for some major complaining then
[li][b]nominated for deletion:[/b] rewards would not be purchased like normal items, but would be awarded via questlines for each equipment slot. Upon reaching a certain rank, the player would be `inserted' into the corresponding reward questline such that the available quest is one that supplies them with the most powerful item they'd be able to use: a lvl 30 blue would hardly be appropriate for a player who's 60. So no pre-60 epics in this system (and a single path of advancement for 60-70), epics are really only for lvl 60+; for anyone under 60, epics are just twink gear. Rewards would still require HRP to purchase; the interface is just different. This achieves INFORMATION HIDING, that is, not spoiling the lvl 15 player's gameplay by showing her an item level 82 tier 3 PvP epic. It would also prevent players from [i]skipping[/i] the lower reward tiers, that is going directly to the tier-5 artifacts.
If the devs ever read this thread and agree with its ideas, our PvP gear situation should be good to go . . . but equipment isn't everything, and
[i][b]SO WHAT[/b][/i] if you find out this guy you've been tracking down is a HWL/GM? Right now, the answer is, really, Oh that guy must have no life. What it [i]should[/i] be is, omg Im dead ~_~. So this is pretty much a consequence of how difficult it is to rank up: the [i]variability of rank with skill[/i]. It's kind of hard to analyse right now how to do this because of the like emergent, synergistic effects of possible changes, but here's an attempt . . .
[b](emergent effect)[/b] One of the ideas in the thread "PvP issue: BGs are broken" is a weighting system. High-ranked players would have more weight; this means that their team would, on average, be understrength. Moreso if these players group together to form a like small, dense depleted uranium tank round. The point being, players with skill would still perform awesomely under these conditions; but players who suck would, well, would suck . . . and wouldn't rank up much further. The ones who made it to the top [i]would[/i] be the best.
[b](emergent effect)[/b] The bounty system from the MWL thread would reward skilled bounty hunters with large amounts of honor, propelling them to the higher ranks, although it is difficult to tell how significant this would be when compared to probably-greater-honor-flow from BGs.
[b](emergent effect)[/b] ...although not re quite the same topic as the previous two emergent effects. Increased difficulty in ranking up is the same thing as saying it's harder to get CP (honor) at a higher rank, which is the same thing as saying that hardcore players would have to demonstrate [i]a higher level of skill to get their Honor Reward Points[/i], even if they're spending it on the same stuff as casuals. This is fair because they're getting [i]more[/i] HRP and have a greater selection of rewards to spend their HRP on.
[b](PvP rank idea! new! btw I think this post could benefit from some downsizing, it is not elegantly simple. Need to switch [i]voice registers[/i])[/b] Add a new variable to rank and HRP calculation: your faction's overall performance in BGs and world PvP! Let `Pf' equal this performance; Pf is calculated by combining your faction's win/loss stats in BGs that week with your faction's city boss death count when compared to the opposite faction. (This would give players an incentive to attack and defend cities, as well as give e.g. Horde a handicap in BGs (high ranked) if Horde is consistently winning.) Pf is used to calculate the total [i]honor rating point pool[/i] for your faction that week. So if your faction is doing well, you are more likely to rank up, regardless of how you did compared to other players from your faction. Your weekly `rating' score is calculated from this pool and averaged into your current rating (on the honor page, [b]http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/index.html[/b]) to get your [i]new[/i] rating. But before that is done, your HRP for that week is calculated by combining that weekly honor rating with a scaling factor for the competitiveness of your faction's honor rankings. So what this would mean is, 1) you'd get more HRP for PvPing harder 2) you'd rank up for PvPing harder 3) you wouldn't rank up, but you would get more HRP (and therefore more PvP rewards!) if [i]everyone[/i] is PvPing harder 4) you'd get more honor rating points, and therefore higher rank and more HRP, if your faction tends to win in BGs or is consistently razing the other faction's cities.
[b](world pvp idea that just happens to fit into the focus of this thread, with possible emergent effects)[/b] Drastically increase the honor yield from killing high-ranked players so that they are constantly being targeted. Report these same players on WorldDefense whenever they go raiding: "Crossroads is under attack by Grand Marshall Pallywinlol!" These players could start a war all by themselves! It's just a matter of escalation and friendly and opposing force expectations. Bring back world PvP! . . . although that's really the focus of [i]another[/i] thread, not this one =P
[b]Fix the honor system now!!
/sign[/b] [/quote]
I'm not reading this, but glancing at the last paragraph, I note that Aion had a much higher difference in rewards between ranks than WoW. In WoW, killing someone at the highest rank was worth about twice as much as killing someone at the lowest rank. In Aion, lowest rank was worth 120 points, while highest was worth over 9000 points. I PvPed up to Grade 4 Soldier, at which point I was worth 645 points, and then used some items to get Grade 3, where I was worth 903 points, but I didn't really PvP at that rank. I actually might never have died after getting to that rank. See the suggestions I posted on the forums for Aion, 관심 개발자 – Problems with solo PvP and PvE in Western Market.
It just shows how there was a game designer who thought that having a 10x+ disparity in point rewards between players was a reasonable idea. That my suggestion in 2006, to "Drastically increase the honor yield from killing high-ranked players so that they are constantly being targeted", wasn't crazy. And Aion also showed that, if rewards are high for killing high-ranked players, then they will in fact be targeted. I had a bit of an argument with a high-ranked player, when I was playing in 2010, due to them not participating in a fortress siege which had the potential to benefit all players from the faction. They didn't want to lose rank from being killed. (I appreciated this player taking the time to justify their actions to me, a random player who was too low to ever do the same content as this player, and this conversation and their name might be somewhere in my 4000 screenshots.)
The argument I had been thinking of, though, was 'ranks 31 Dec.txt'. I only remember the title, and am not reading any more of it:
Bringing the "WAR" back to Warcraft (revised 19 Jan)
[i]The simplest explanation for the death of world PvP in WoW is PvE raids...[/i]
It has always been the intention of the folks working at Blizzard to make this game as fun as possible, for as many people as possible. But there are certain realities that must be observed in the continual development of an MMO... one, if not the, most important problems is supplying content at the rate at which players can devour it. This has so far proved to be, and probably will always be a problem.
We agree that the game, as it came out, was fantastic. But this was the result of several years of development, coding, quest-writing. All too soon the majority of players were lvl 60, and bored, with nothing to do but grief lowbies and pick fights with each other... which for some people wasn't so bad =P But progress had been halted, and for an MMO, stagnation means death.
The first Ragnaros kill. Chaos reigned as casters QQ'd about the coming doom of all non-melee classes that would happen as melee got more and more powerful and casters, didn't.
Ragnaros was put on farm status, and with BWL nearing completion, the honor system and battlegrounds were released.
A quick examination of the honor rewards reveals something interesting: [i]the sole purpose of the honor system was to maintain gear parity between those who cared about raiding, and those who didn't[/i]. Just before the honor system was released, the R14 rewards were bumped up from run-of-the-mill iLvl 65 epics to being on par with drops from Rag (iLvl 78), the toughest boss to exist at the time. Perhaps Bliz realized then the grave mistake they had made with the jump in item quality from standard MC epics to Rag's loot (now on farm status)... after all it was their first raid instance with all sorts of incompleteness, even a legendary neck item that they'd forgotten to take out of the loot tables and were only reminded of when it dropped for someone. In any case it was too late; the only thing to do was press on and give BWL even [i]better[/i] epics so players would have a reason to even go there.
*cough* so PvP rewards only exist to balance PvE rewards, but the target item quality is inevitably going to change over time. [i]Unlike ranks, the arena system is specifically designed to scale with raid instances, giving better and better rewards as more difficult raid encounters are released.[/i] They are Blizzard's answer to gear inequality from PvE, and they are not going away.
The arenas aren't really our idea of PvP. But we see that they are necessary, from a gear standpoint (yuck). With a proper understanding of why things are the way they are, we can move on to what can be done within this framework.
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[i][b]The solution, part 1: easily implemented[/b][/i]
Players don't have enough reason to PvP outside of BGs. In TBC, that will just become, players don't have enough reason to PvP outside of BGs or away from a few, forlorn "world PvP objectives". This and several related problems, "players aren't able to have fun PvPing if they haven't got the best gear" and "players are not able to affect the gameworld enough", can be solved by a body of ideas and suggestions mostly revolving around BRINGING BACK RANKS and fixing BGs.
1) finish the matching system. Suggestion: instead of matching based on gear in the bank, just "lock" items that are equipable and banked so players can't take them out. This lets players PvP in less than their best for fun and competition. Can you say, nekkid bracket? =o
2) make killing a faction leader cause their city to ASPLODE into smoke and flames for an hour or two! NPCs are still functional, but maybe with different conversation texts. "Hallo, I am Kreeg the apple seller and OH GODS DID YOU SEE THAT GUY RUN PAST SCREAMING AND COVERED IN FLAMES!?" Also make it give your entire faction a buff for 24 hours that increases honor and contribution point gains by 10%.
3) convert BG rewards into a quest-based system. An example of how it might be done has been posted below. Advantages of the system are that it gives players a reason to win instead of just "losing quickly", forces them to participate to get the rewards instead of just going afk, doesn't compete with rank-based rewards and consumables (see below), makes getting the epic BG rewards truly difficult instead of just more of the same grind, and operates in the same way as PvE blue-reward quests so players don't get lured into the habit of thinking of PvP rewards as an easy, grindable, no-effort alternative to dungeon crawling and questing.
4) remove the ability to multi-queue for BGs. Alliance "pay" for queueing all BGs when they join any one of them, and this makes it difficult to justify queueing from the physical BG entrance where we can duel or even raid the other faction's BG zonein.
5) bring back ranks.
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[i][b]The solution, part 2: harder to implement[/b][/i]
What is power?
[ul][i]"Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thralldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death."[/i][/ul]
In WoW, there are none with power such as this. We have overpowered... from the perspective of the less-well-geared. We have "normal" for raiders, for whom everyone else is a nub with "trash" gear. The problem is that [i]everyone is expected to compete on the same level[/i].
What we need is a way to categorize those with great power and ability, from those without...
A rank system may be the answer. However, while the old system was mostly a way of distributing rewards, this one would be the means to define and recognize the existence of power in this game, with PvP rewards no more than a cool extra for time and effort spent.
Key features of such a system:
[ul][li]non-decaying ranks
[li]rank determined by quality of PvP, not playtime
[li]not all opponents yield honor
[li]reduced number of titles to ease recognition
[li]not confined to BGs
[/ul]
First, battlegrounds and what can be got from them. As mentioned above, the matching system must be completed before this could work. But another change is needed... [i]some actions would affect rank, and some would only award honor tokens[/i]. Borrowing from the past, actions that affect rank could award "honor", while those that lead to tokens could award "contribution points". Fighting, both in and out of BGs, would award honor. Completing BG objectives and world PvP objectives would award CP. While it is necessary to reward the completion of BG objectives so games have any kind of point instead of just mindless killing, they're not the same thing as skill or power, which is what rank represents. Contribution points could be spent on a wide variety of consumables for players with little or no rank (or excess CP), or a SMALL selection of slotted items for players of higher rank. These rewards cannot intersect with arena rewards! This is because while arena rewards can be updated every season, PvP rewards cannot be regularly updated and must be of relatively static quality for any given rank and level, regardless of future raid instances which raise the level of "best" gear. If each title corresponded to several ranks, an item might require "<title> (Rank X)"... but this is just a suggestion.
Second, the determination of ranks. This is really complicated. The mechanics must ensure a reasonable rank distribution, correlate well with gear and skill, not be exploitable or plain broken, and must encourage instead of discourage world PvP and general enjoyment of the game. Tho the most important thing to remember is: [i][b]all competition is with the other faction, not your own[/b][/i]. IF YOU DON'T LIKE MATH, STOP READING NOW.
[b]**************************************
******* WARNING WARNING *******
*****MATHY STUFF FOLLOWS*****
**************************************[/b]
Killing someone of equal or [i]higher[/i] rank awards honor.
Dying to someone of equal or [i]lower[/i] rank awards dishonor, or just causes you to "lose honor".
Both of these effects are SHARED IN GROUPS (please read that again) yes SHARED IN GROUPS which means that warriors won't get unfairly penalized for always charging in and dying from lack of heals, mages won't get unfairly penalized because they're so squishy and die all the time, healers won't get unfairly penalized because they're always the first ones to get targeted, support classes won't get penalized because their dps is low, hunters won't unfairly benefit from their range (those last two concerns actually not being silly), etc etc. There is also a mechanism to modify dishonor based on unfair odds, see below.
The details of how much honor and dishonor to award in 1v1 situations is the key to balancing the rank distribution and stuffs like that (as well as confidence in the rank system in defining who you can be "expected" to kill, but so much is obvious enough that I won't get into it; this post is already long enough >.<). So! The tuning variables are as follows:
[ul][li]the maximum rank difference that players can be expected to compete at. Ignoring for now SOCIAL implications, the higher the allowable difference is the more the rank distribution can expand. This effect also works to reduce or prevent gaps in the rank distribution.
[li]gear inequality, the difference between "average" gear and raid gear. As well as skill inequality (which however isn't configurable...), the higher this is the more the rank distribution can expand.
[li]the difference between honor for a kill and dishonor for dying at a certain rank. This is positive for the lowest ranks (less penalty for dying) and negative for the higher ranks. The bigger the difference the more the rank distribution contracts, but it also has the much more important effect of defining how fast the rank distribution as a whole can evolve...
[/ul]
If the amount of honor for killing a same-ranked opponent is a linear function [i]ax + b[/i] with [i]a[/i] and [i]b[/i] greater than 0, then defining the amount of dishonor for dying to a same-ranked opponent as [i](a + c)x + b - d[/i] with [i]c[/i] greater than 0 and 0 < [i]d[/i] < [i]b[/i] causes the rank distribution as a whole to move upwards when ranks are generally low, and stabilizes the rank distribution once players start reaching the highest ranks. If this isn't done it would be very difficult for players to get past the lowest ranks. o.0
More math! And another copy/paste from previous posts hehe...
[i]The only problem with this is it would require a lot of calculations... from what I understand, the reason diminishing returns on HKs can't be done in real-time is that it involves large numbers of lists or other data types and the number of procedures required scales up too quickly; the number of calculations implied by this solution may or may not present difficulties of the same magnitude. Any programming types have an answer? [/i][*NOTE: if the load is too great, a simplified system could be used tho at the cost of purity of the meaing of ranks :/][i] Anyway here is the system, in messy form:[/i]
***system of dishonor modification based on threat lists***
"attention" is how much an opponent could reasonably be focusing on you and/or contributing to your death. player-based threat lists were referenced by Blizzard when describing how rep-based tagging worked in BGs; the exact mechanics of these threat lists are unknown, such as how they relate to going out of combat and how they relate to the idea used by Blizzard when describing the honor system of HKs basing honor off proportional damage done by everything "in the past minute" or so. I never did learn whether vanishing cleared a rogue's contribution to damage... yeah. so when a player dies, their threat list is checked. Every player (NOT mob; mobs including guards soak up part of an HK based on damage done without awarding dishonor for their share of damage) on the list is then checked to see how much "attention" they were paying to the killed player:
1/(sum of threats on checked player's threat list, modded for level/rank) = attention
total attention = sum of individual attentions over the killed player's threat list = 1 if 1v1 situation
dishonor = 1/attention * (total honor awarded to others for that death) * (dishonor for a "standard death" vs a same-ranked opponent)/(honor awarded for a "standard kill" vs a same-ranked opponent)
Maybe (1/attention)^0.5 or similar. Changing less...
"Total honor awarded to others on death" accounts for the fact that some of the players who contributed to the killed player's death may not have gotten any honor because their rank was too high, as well as Diminishing Returns.
This dishonor is then shared with teammates. Everyone shares equally in dishonor... hmm, I guess this means that honor must be shared equally too (before DR) to avoid penalizing higher-ranked players in a mixed group... which means that if you're PvPing with a high-ranked player and killing low-ranked opponents, you'll get half the honor as if you were PvPing with a similarly low-ranked friend against the same opponent. (So for dishonor, it's not that "some players aren't getting any honor for killing you" so much that "everyone is getting reduced honor because of the group composition".) Gratz programming all that, Bliz. o.0
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[i]Update 19 Jan[/i]:
Ranks and titles could be awarded by third-party vigilante organizations for both factions. Old PvP titles would be retained as a selectable option. Old rewards would be bought the same way they are now, with honor tokens (from Contribution Points) obtained by running BGs, with no restriction on who can buy what. It might thus be best to rename the old PvP sets to be more in line with the fact that they are no longer exclusive; the idea is that the sets are for a "standard line unit" in that faction's armies. Grunt's leggings, Wizard's Chestpiece, etc... not tied to the old titles anymore.
This might mean removing the old epic rewards... it doesn't make sense for them to exist when similar-quality rewards are not available at lvls 70, 80, etc.
The new "rank" rewards, in contrast, would be dependent on titles or ranks earned from the third-party organizations, and would probably be purchased with gold, not honor tokens.
[b][i]Effects of the rank system[/i][/b]
[ul][li]The idea that "it is always better to have gear, than to not have gear" would NO LONGER BE VALID. With gear quality as a transparent attribute, the prestige of any particular rank would be inversely proportional to the quality of your gear. Achieving a high rank with bad gear is much more impressive than achieving the same title with excellent gear, because it implies a high level of skill to compensate for the gear disadvantage. That, and the greater responsibilities of high-ranked players in grouped PvP, both outside and in BGs. Using the above model of honor and dishonor sharing in groups, having more high-ranked players on your team decreases the honor per kill for [i]everyone[/i] in the vicinity; these players also award more dishonor to your team when killed by high-ranked opponents. A low-ranked player, otoh, penalizes the team much less when killed, and thus has more freedom to e.g. suicide bomb in AV.
[li]similar attitude change towards being high level. Since rank is a relative thing, it would be just as possible to gain rank and prestige at low levels as at high levels. This is twinking, except that non-twinks would not feel the intense pressure to compete that they do with the current system, because with this ranks system [i]non-twinks would not be penalized for being killed by a twink team[/i].
[li]more world PvP, obviously, since it would be as easy or easier for someone to gain honor via world PvP than by BGs where honor is shared, assuming that they have high skill and haven't yet "stabilized" at the appropriate rank. Even if they have, while there would be no reliable [i]net[/i] movement of rank, it's always fun to be able to interact with and affect other players. Anyone whom you could affect would be of similar or higher rank and therefore a respectable opponent, not some lowbie or "bluebie" that you could two-shot, so this kind of world PvP conflict would have gain potential and risk for ALL involved. So this is related to the idea of being able to affect the gameworld; the gameworld, in this case, being other players who are interested in PvP. (on a PvE server, flagging is not automatic so griefing would not be possible.)
[li]the lack of broad rewards for rank, with most PvP rewards coming from alternative venues like the arena system, BG rewards, and the token-based part of the honor system, would actually be an advantage. It would mean that for once, something in this game is mostly about social rewards instead of material rewards. It would mean that carebear PvPers won't feel bad for killing someone, because the only thing they are depriving their victim of is a title, not gear. Titles are for fun, not anything to cry about when you can't get... unlike gear, for some people. So by only offering a few minor reward slots for rank, players would actually be able to have more fun when the system penalizes you for dying. Odd that, eh?
[li]summarizing all the above: more opportunity and potential for fun for all players in the game, regardless of whether or not they've progressed to the latest raid instance and/or have been on a good enough arena team with good enough gear to win for long enough to buy a full set of epics. Decreased barriers to entry for having fun. This is good no matter which way you look at it. Blizzard, if you are reading this, you are almost certainly aware that the PvP potential of the current game is lackluster and uninspiring; if you don't do something to change that, and soon, your PvP playerbase will abandon you for Darkfall or a similar game.
[/ul]
[b][i]Example BG rewards quest system[/i][/b]
Eliminate Marks of Honor. Replace them with Victory Tokens, which are only awarded when you win a BG and only when you have a BG reward quest for a blue item. The preform bracket (this is assuming the matching system has been completed) rewards Victory [i]Medallions[/i], which are used for [i]epic[/i] BG reward quests like The Unstoppable Force. Quests also require a certain number of insignias dropped by other players as a quest item, to prevent players from getting rewards for just sitting in the starting area the whole game.
[u]Example#1[/u]
[b]Armaments of the Silverwing[/b] (requires lvl 18) (PvP quest) -- [i]cannot be done in a non-BGs raid aka preform[/i]
[ul][li]0/30 Outrider Insignia
[li]0/5 Warsong Gulch Victory Token
[/ul]Rewards:
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
[Lorekeeper's Staff][Outrunner's Bow]
[Protector's Sword][Sentinel's Blade]
Gain:
[ul][li]1750 experience
[li]275 reputation with Silverwing Sentinels
[li]275 reputation with Darnassus
[/ul][u]Example#2[/u]
[b]Adornments of the Silverwing[/b] -- same as above quest but requires only 20 insignias and 3 victory tokens, and gives choice of caster ring/melee ring/agil neck/healer cloak.
[u]Example#3[/u]
[b]Stormpike Sage's Implements[/b] (requires lvl 60) (PvP RAID quest) -- [i]to be done in the AV "preform bracket" vs other preforms[/i]
[ul][li]0/100 Frostwolf Grunt's Insignia
[li]0/12 Alterac Valley Victory Medallion
[/ul]Rewards:
You will be able to choose one of these rewards:
[Lei of the Lifegiver][Therazane's Touch]
[Tome of Arcane Domination][Tome of Fiery Arcana]
[Tome of Shadow Force][Tome of the Ice Lord]
Gain:
[ul][li]8700 experience
[li]525 reputation with Stormpike
[li]525 reputation with Ironforge
[/ul]This means there should be THREE methods of joining a BG: the two that already exist, and a third one to go into the "preform" bracket which avoids all PUGers and awards the better kind of victory medallion when you win. This preform bracket is only necessary because of epic rewards, which are a legacy of the old honor system. Sorry. :/
(I saw and recognized the warning about complicated math, and I think the math is a bit better in one of the posts I made on Reddit about the topic.)
Anyway. In my first message to Demi Rose, I said that a photo was nice and linked to <redacted>.
I don't think it's true to say that I tried to get her to <redacted>. Although I did later on email her and say that she should <redacted>, I think this was mostly because I expected that I wouldn't be saying anything about her for a while.
Demi Rose was, at that point, the person who would be classified as the most attractive who <redacted>, based on her social media profiles. Although I would like to be able to say that Kate is attractive, and I might have published a screenshot of my desktop sometime in the past 14 years that showed the thumbnail of the photo of Kate's face that is there, she doesn't have a large social media following. She has or had an Instagram page, but she probably only had a few hundred followers there at most. I said to Sherine that she's pretty, but Sherine also never got a lot of followers based on her looks. Yoko Ono had a lot of followers, but she has said before that she is not exceptional in her appearance, and there is no reason to think that her followers result from her appearance.
To me, one of the important questions at that point in time, which might have been around 2015, was whether Sherine wanted me to die. I had said that she should <redacted> unless she wanted me to die, and I didn't know if she <redacted>. There was the danger that someone could think that I would think, "Demi Rose is more attractive than Sherine, so I will ignore what Sherine wants."
So, was me not actively trying to get Demi Rose to <redacted> a good reason for not to do so? I would say, of course it wasn't a good reason. But this is about, like, behavior that seems selfish. Demi Rose has stated that she likes the popular series, Love Island. As with many reality TV shows, this is about people developing attraction towards each other based on being forced to be in close proximity and so on. I believe it stands in contrast to Asian-style dramas which have a plot closely focused on the development of a relationship. In Japanese, 恋愛ドラマ. Like the 2007 drama Proposal Daisakusen, that won many awards. (Not actually listed in Category:日本の恋愛ドラマ, unlike the popular Hana yori Dango.)
So it seems possible that Demi Rose thought it would have been 'selfish' if she <redacted>. Like, I was definitely not trying to act in the way that I expect contestants on Love Island act. I said to Imane that I had never "rizzed" anyone up and I was not trying to "rizz" her up. I think it's accurate to say that I have also never flirted with anyone. Possibly the closest I have come to acting like I wanted someone to be interested in me was being silent.
Suppose that Sherine did want me to die, at the point in time when I first sent a message on Chirp Club to Demi Rose. Even if Sherine <redacted>, it didn't mean that she didn't want me to die. It could have just meant that she wanted to keep open the option of not wanting me to die. As anyone who understands logic knows, "If A, then B" is not the same as "If not A, then not B". If Sherine wanted me to die, did it mean that Demi Rose should not have <redacted>?
I was thinking of a question yesterday which seems it has some relevance here. As a purely hypothetical situation, I will excuse the fact that it's about money.
"There is $10 million sitting in the open, not owned by anyone. A thousand starving orphans ignore it, when they could take it and use it to buy food. How many years pass before you are comfortable with taking the money yourself?"
Money is just used as a shorthand here for 'something of value'. The question would be the same if it did not involve money, like if it was "a magic lamp that gave three wishes". It's just hard to imply that taking the valuable thing is bad unless the thing could help people who are suffering, and still hard unless it's many people who are suffering, and many valuable things are difficult to split between a large number of people. If it was a magic lamp, who would get the first wish out of three? If it's food, who would eat 5-year-old food, other than me?
Maybe a few weeks after I first sent a public message to Demi Rose, she commented about a photo she posted saying that it was as if she was going to the beach, as she was wearing swimwear. This suggested an awareness of possible dishonesty: the reason that she had put on swimwear. This post is about the possibility of perceived dishonesty: whether I thought it would have been best if Demi Rose had immediately <redacted>.
I have only been in one relationship, with Mei, and it might have ended before I told her that I was male. If I have another relationship in my life, I would like to be able to say that I helped that person. One of the reasons I was sad that the developers of World of Warcraft and Aion did not use my suggestions (other than maybe the minor suggestion I made in ~2007, to add an invisibility effect to WoW similar to the one in Lord of the Rings, which they did) was that it meant I had not helped Mei. She didn't let me send her any gifts, like the earrings for her sister, or the painting. Even in games, she didn't tell me her character in Aion, and in WoW I was never high enough level to help her. I was responsible once for her flying to Booty Bay where I was PvPing, even though she knew that she would get killed by guards and lose durability, which she would have to spend money to repair. (She also didn't equip cheaper gear to make the repair costs lower, at the expense of lower combat effectiveness.)
When it comes to judging other people's behavior, I think a lot of the time it's about whether that person has acted in a way that others feel should be emulated. In the US, this means whether someone acts in a way that benefits themselves: judging a female for being with a male who <redacted>, or judging a male for being with a female who does not seem attractive. Some judgements are made based on patterns of behavior where it's expected that a person does not benefit, but whether this is true may depend on information that only this person has.
I would say that anyone, no matter who they are, has only a low chance of benefiting from trying to be in a relationship with me, but time is valuable for everyone, and at least I want other people to be happy.
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