Hey john,

no this is not a flame, I just want to discuss your assertion that running is not a problem, which has been included in many threads, but has not had its own topic yet.

My feeling, regarding any game like this, is that there has to be some element of fear in order to make the game exciting.

look at WoW, if you run into an area which you are not skilled enough to attempt, you're gonna get hosed, unless you're VERY careful.

There's no running in that game. And that's what makes it exciting.

The problem here is that running in this game prevents real interaction. Sure it's a "tactic", and making it harder to run will still leave some form of running as a "tactic", but you will have to be more careful about what fights you start, or wading into the middle of 4 pirates.

I'm not advocating making it so that traders have no escape, I don't want to make it impossible. But making it easy to run makes weapons like mines, or tactics like a quick-turn-flarenet-and-back-to-running pointless. They're less effective than just boosting.

Reducing the validity of this tactic will give people room to come up with new ones.

Cuz honestly, does anyone think that hitting the Tab button should qualify as the best possible move to escape?

"Just a few more steps and we'll be safe in the fireswamp!"

"We'll never survive!'

"Nonsense, you're only saying that because no one ever has!"

this will surely turn into a flamefest. It should be locked before that happens.

I actually think this one has the potential to become a productive thread, or to fade quietly off the board otherwise. Let's wait and see what happens.

I don't play WoW, but somebody who does told me that some players do attack others and then make a dash to another area. Not so?

I don't know if "productive" is the right description. There is only one player that thinks running isn't a problem. :)

EDITED OUT

FM: Hmm, maybe, but my understanding is that its only certain kinds of characters that can pull that off, and there are ways to freeze them or ambush them. You're by no means home free once you have a lead on them.

But, on second thought, that has a lot to do with the fact that WoW is 2 dimensional.

If anyone has read Ender's Shadow, Bean makes a point which applies here, regarding the problem of defense in 3 dimensions.

Basically, he says that defense in space is impossible, there are too many vectors of entrance.

In much the same sense, escape is easy, it's impossible to box someone in, there just aren't any strategic points to guard.

So, coordination in attack makes very little difference right now. All you're basically doing is upping your firepower. There's really no extra skill other than aiming and energy control that comes into play.

But, if you create something to slow it down a bit, or weapons that hinder running, suddenly the problem becomes more interesting.

Imagine 2 traders flying side-by-side, dropping a stream of mines.

Or the same 2 traders making it out to 3000 m, and dropping lmines to protect them as they charge jump engines.

Imagine 2 pirates trying to catch them, one brings concussive rockets (I know, I know, there's no such thing... YET) and attempts to blast them back inside the 3000 m line. While the other moves about trying to pick off the traders or the lmines.

in WoW, all characters have the same speed, with the exception of some skills (sprint and the like) that get you away in a jiffy.

in PvP though, you have two types of fights. group efforts and duels. group efforts mostly consist of two groups standing face to face with everyone waiting for an individual doing something to come in range (all ranged attacks have the same effective range and if you've fired at something in range, you hit (or it's dodge, your shot can't miss)). here you *can* run. fire and run works really well, your relative range might double from when you fired (which you did at max range), but, eh, the game doesn't care.

for duels, or semi-small groups (under 4-5 people) fighting, you can hardly run. everyone has the same speed with some few exceptions. but, since your items aren't damaged (worn, they won't need repair if you die) in PVP, dying only counts for two things. PVP rank (in game honor points) and the personal annoyance of having to find your corpse.

there is no real incentive to run. it doesn't cost you anything to die (close to VO really) and you might just take your foe with you. but running isn't *that* hard, if you've got the specific skills to do so. but, if you don't have those skills, it's almost pointless to try.

you can do the dash and run, using border areas to run, but it's rather rare (in my limited experience, servers might vary) and, well, since running is hard enough, tracking you down is doable. of course, people love to try to pull others into their faction areas. drawing a LVL 60 undead rogue who's been playing in MC for too long into a newbie area though... the alliance d00d didn't get help as much as "wtf, bring that elsewhere ffs".

aaaanyway,running in WoW is doable, but compared to VO, eh, no, it's not. and since people heal quickly, hit and runs are pretty fruitless.

keep this thread good natured

And here I thought I was being good natured. Forget it, I'm going back to being a crabass.

For starters, I shall expound on the virtues of the current easy-running environment. A game where combat is tough to escape sounds neat. It sounds neat, to talk about turboing toward a wormhole, spinning around, firing some flares, spinning back around, dropping some mines while your jump engines charge, and away you go.

It sounds neat...yet wholly impossible for me to do. Probably every veteran still playing easily has the 3-D wherewithal to execute maneuvers like the one I just described. Maybe after clocking as many hours in VO I could also have that kind of spatial sense, but I never will clock that many hours and neither will 99% of everyone who is ever likely to play this game in the future. In fact, this speaks directly to the lopsidedness of VO. Easy running is the only avenue by which newbies can get by in this game. Fighting the veterans is impossible; the experience gap is far too overwhelming.

So there is a choice to be made. Either there will be a game in which newbies can get by, or there will be a game in which all players are required to clock enough hours to become veterans. If running becomes hard, what should newbies do?

Now I guarantee that someone is going to respond "Oh, well, you just need to learn the maneuvers necessary to get by." Which is my point. You must either become a vet, or don't play. Good luck with that. Or there is the ever-popular "Stay in safe space." Yes. Don't participate. Don't play. That's my point.

i think you are overreacting a bit wylfing. running is not significantly harder. you only have about a second and a half to line up on the target when s/he jumps, and thats not a huge amount of time. if you havent been significantly damaged you have a good chance of making it through alive.

what it does do, and it may have been an unintended side effect, is make nation space a LOT safer. getting past a SF is now almost impossible, even for the veteran players. so there is an area that is almost completely SAFE for newer players or players who dont want to risk combat as much. the only place the changes have a significant impact is in GREY space, which was supposed to be dangerous in the first place.

Sorry wylfing, I didn't mean to be offensive, but I kinda was.

I just meant that it felt like you were singling johnhawl out, and that would be the quickest way that I can imagine for this conversation to degrade.

i think you are overreacting a bit

No, just being as devil's-advocat-ish as possible. Although the bit about my spatial ineptitude was real :)

"I don't know if "productive" is the right description. There is only one player that thinks running isn't a problem. :)"

Wow i never knew Johnhawl, and i were the same person, this completely destroys my concept of reality, and i suppose the John-Q fusion me will also have to include Beolach (he if i recall has said the problem is that there is no reason not to run not that people can run) and Arolte. Man i had no idea i was 4 seperat people....

Anyway, the thing about running is this:
WE ALL FLY TINY TINY SHIPS.
every player operated ship in vendetta is what i would clasify as a support ship. And most of the ships are interceptors or space superiority fighters. The only way to make running more dificult on that scape is to make missiles way more effective than anyone wants. the consequences of attacking somone are fine, you will die and need to replace your ship if you can't get out. This will be a bigger deal when larger ships are more common. but for now, yes chasing an interceptor in a space superiority fighter is hard, but think about chasing a trident in a HAC. that seems a bit easier doesn't it?

anyway that's just my opinion on running. to each their own, but i hope everyone can concider the diference between exploiting an inate feature of what this game simulates and exploiting something that is a result of a bug or other emergent behavier in the game code.

Well, let me clarify how I feel on the matter. Running *shouldn't* be a problem, because running should be (depending on the situation) either A) admitting defeat or B) attempting to claim victory. Both of those are acceptable, if you want to admit defeat, I won't stop you, and if you want to attempt to claim victory, I won't stop you attempting that either (although, if you're my enemy, I will try to stop you succeeding in that attempt).

But, right now I do feel that there has been a problem, because many of the times that should fall into category A (admitting defeat) actually don't, because the way the game is now the "loser" loses nothing and the "winner" gains nothing. That's not much of a loss or win. The solution I see to this is more missions & other objectives, like capturable stations etc.

For category B, I also think that there has been a problem, in that it is too easy. Currently there's really only two situations that fit into this category, CtC (once you've grabbed the cargo) and traders being attacked by pirates. Both of those are too easy. In CtC, if I get the Purified Xithricite into my ship, 4 times out of 5 (if not more) I'm going to get away with it. In trading, I cannot think of a single instance in my entire time playing this game been successfully pirated. So I have absolutely no fear of pirates. If I did, I'd find trading to be a lot more exciting. This last patch addresses this situation, but I have yet to form an opinion on if it is just right, too much, or too little.

Anyway, to sum up: In my opinion, running is not a problem, the two problems are that running does not equal defeat when it should; and that running in an attempt to gain victory is too easy.

Beolach, you just brought an interesting thought into my head. Might be an important concept, too.

Quote: "the two problems are that running does not equal defeat when it should; and that running in an attempt to gain victory is too easy."

I think we've got two basic types of fights here:
1. Two fighters attacking each other.
2. One fighter attacking a trader (pirating).

We have to consider the motive in each case. Obviously, in the first case, each fighter's motive is to destroy the other, surviving being secondary. If either fighter runs, they've lost the opportunity to achieve their first objective, which can be considered a loss.

However, in the second case, we've got a lopsided situation. The fighter/pirate's motive remains the same - destroy the trader. However, the trader's objective is to survive (in order to deliver his cargo). Whether he destroys the pirate or not is secondary. Once again, if the fighter flees, it's a rather apparent loss. However, if the trader flees, it's not. He's simply achieving his first objective, which can/should be considered a win.

So how do we create a system to introduce a penalty for running in the first situation without creating the same penalty for running in the second?

3. A fighter attacking someone with the goal of provoking a response of some sort.

> So how do we create a system to introduce a penalty for running in the first situation
> without creating the same penalty for running in the second?

Easy, with actual, meaningful objectives, rather than just "destroy the other ship." Missions to capture or destroy stations is one example. Whether you're attacking or defending, leaving the fight has an obvious drawback: it makes it that much easier for your enemy to win. Also, in the Border Patrol mission, I'd like to see the objective changed from "kill <X> number of enemy ships" to "clear the sector of enemy ships". That way, if someone runs away, it's the same as if they were destroyed: there's one less ship for their side in the sector.

Again Beo, your positive reinforcement model adds no fear to the game.

I assure you, if one of my nation's stations is about to be captured, that will indeed incite a certain flavor of fear in my gameplay.

the truth is you can't define rules to punish runers, because there are plenty of situations where running is conciderd ok (pirating, tacticle retreats when being attacked by multiple foes, new players escaping from more expierenced players, any battle against an NPC, etc.) so the only tools available to discourage running are changing game mechanics, and offering rewards to those who refuse to run. now due to the nature of the game, any cahnge to the game mechanics will have wide reaching effects on evrything from trade runs, to what ships and batteiris people use. so, that leaves us with the best option of rewarding those who don't run. Or as Beolach suggested creating a situation wherein there is an incentive to stay and fight. (this could be positive or negative reinforcment, as fighting to the death to avoid failing a mission isn't positive reinforcment, but fighting to the death because you get more XP if you don't run prematurely is positive reinforcment)

[edit] Beo, i refrened you because at the time there were only a few people who were vocal about the game mechanics not being the best tool to fix the underlying problems with running. once the update came out though all the complainers came out of the woodwork so... [/edit]

What incentive do you propose?

(Bearing in mind that I still believe that the one thing that truly creates immersion is fear.

Look at Doom 3... you have to shake yourself out of that)