@Renegade ++RIP++: But if you look at the total fun of all players in the game, like I was, you end up with less total fun. Which is a bad thing.

And really, there's very little other players can do that will make me have less fun. If players run from me, that has no impact on how much fun I have. But the devs can do things that will change how much fun I have, and making repairs take time, or respawning take time, or regularly losing XP, are all things that would have a significant, detremental effect on how much fun I have from the game.

Beo, no, not everyone runs. but as soon as someone starts, it gets more and more frequent, since noone wants to give away kills to runners.

and as for the winning of the furball, I agree to missions where winning turf is interesting and something we should have, but at the same time, a group war without any end prize is a good thing as well. it leads people to fight for the fight, which sometimes yeilds really specatcular situations. they've really grown on me as I started to participate. I'll miss those things if they go away. =)

in WoW, do your buddies do MC runs or fight things like Onyxia? in one on one leveling and PvE, avoiding death in WoW is like avoiding death in VO when botting. when one comes to MC et al, things change. you have a RAID of 40 people where one or two key slipups wipe the group. one of the main things I miss in VO these days, group efforts where everyone needs to pull their own weight and watch their roles. table-top RPGs are different for many reasons, and always will be (and should be), when it comes to death.

but you will have a total less fun already from people running. Yes it is going to be less, but there is going to be less fun due to the running behaviour or due to any behaviour which detracts fun from someone.

Heck I could come up with equations that would keep the total fun the same, how very easy:

F1 = F - R + X
F2 = F - X + R

Now to both equations add the fun of knowing that the other person is losing fun. I take x and R because the intended goal is to not only detract from the other persons fun but at the same time add to oyur fun aka:

the runner runs and has the fun of staying alive
the not runner lacks fun because the person ran but gains fun because he knows that the runner is going to have to go and take a longer time to repair making him able to get away or finish his mission (in case of ctc or some other objectoriented non kill missions).

effectively making it F1 + F2 = 2F. So no difference in fun. (I just used an example of 2 since if I have to go and add an equation for OO people then it is going to take me forever, and 2 shows the intention.

Save me work (making more equationexamples) and the devs work by just not running so they don't have to put in equations and failsaves to keep the fun at a constant level :D.

Renegade ++RIP++, that is a bad personality flaw! You are saying that you enjoy causing other players to lose fun. If that is the case, then I would consider that to be a major personality flaw you have. I mentioned that in an earlier post. "Now to both equations add the fun of knowing that the other person is losing fun." Gah! Don't ever let my mother hear you saying that. Do you enjoy beating people up, too? Honestly, think about what you're saying here.

And again, I strongly feel that "you will have a total less fun already from people running" is not true. That is a decision that you are willingly making. People run from me, I do not lose any fun from that. If they stayed and fought me, yes I might have more fun, but "not gaining" is not the same as "losing". If I ask someone for $100, and they don't give it to me, I have not lost $100, I just haven't gained it. And, while the player that ran didn't give me any fun, I can easily find other players to fight, or other things to do, that will let me gain fun.

While I'm neither for or against this particularly, I'm not sure how this is intended to decrease running at all. Am I missing something? Is this repairing while docked, or spontaneously in-flight?

Also, I propose a "fun indicator" to be located on the HUD.

Sooo...

If we're trying to eliminate running, why not introduce 'running points', which accumulate for being damaged more than 50% in a fight and leaving, and 'big bad wolf points', for scaring people away (damaging them 50% or more, followed by them jumping out.).

Feel free to rename my 'points' as you wish. :P

What effect, if any, would these running & big bad wolf points have? Traders will tend to get lots of running points, pirates will tend to get lots of big bad wolf points. I think that having the running points help traders (Good job! You got away!), and the big bad wolf points help pirates (Good job! You scared the dickens out of them!), might work out well.

Also, it would help to restrict people to a single career path (lots of running points, going to be restricted to trading careers; lots of big bad wolf points, restricted to piracy & the like), which I think would be a good thing. We've got too many jack-of-all-trades, IMO.

Beo, I think the problem with running, is that the person who was damaged in the fight and DIDN'T leave, is actually worse off in the fight because of it,

if he goes to repair, well then he's out of the fight too. In the meantime, the other player will be back in the action in less than a minute, 30 seconds probably.

If they die? well then, they either have to go with the limited selection available around the fighting spot, or they have to make a 5 minute trip across the galaxy, in which time you can start using your advantage to take out other players.

It's not about the kill, its just that runners are rewarded more than the winner of the fight.

I'd just like Forlarren to know that Vendetta's database updates itself (for your character) everytime you...
1: Log off
2: Dock/Enter a station
3: Die (see 2)

so savepoints are both a) moot and b) pointless.

I will agree with that, Shapenaji, and that it should change. But I do not think requiring time to repair is a valid way to change that. I think improving the mission structure, and possibly Harry Seldon's running/big bad wolf points, or other things would be much better.

The way I see it, the solution isn't that running should be punished, but that staying should be rewarded.

RUNNERS!!!

I propose a point system for measureing the fun-ness of Vendetta Online. Everytime you are having fun you can hit the fun button. Everytime somebody else causes you to have fun you just target them and hit the fun button to add fun points to their account. Every time you are not having fun there would be a less than fun button, same when some other person causes you to be having less fun. This way the devs can accurately measure fun in real time. And those with the most fun points wins (possably a plushy Moth toy running away from pirates).

Since I find pushing buttons less than fun I would like to pre-emtively give my system 10^98754967 less than fun points or however many it would take for the devs to atomate my systme to ramdomly assign points as I play, or possably implament a psysic prediction algorithm of some sort. Then we can all abandon VO and play something better like http://www.progressquest.com/ where all the fun has been automaticly optimised for our gaming pleasure.

@ Celkan
1: No really.
2: I didn't notice.
3: Accually I haven't died yet so I wouln't know.

Now please re-read my post, I am pretty sure I wasn't sugesting the devs implament saving in totality but change the current systme to make dying have at least some consiquence.

No it has nothing to do with enjoying causing other people a lack of fun. It is feeling better that the other person hits the same wall of non fun due to his behaviour of detracting fun from you.

If somebody dents your car, you will feel better if he either pays you some damages or ... It has nothing to do with logics, but feelings that manifest themselves. And a bit of the ego playing a part in the game.

And I don't know if I want the system proposed, I just stated that I could see the logic behind it. But I still fear that it will cause to much bother in the game to be worth it. But there should be something if there isn't a general acceptance.

Except that he's not detracting fun from me. Yes, I enjoy PvP combat, and if another player stays and fights with me, I gain fun from that. But if the other player doesn't stay to the end of the fight, and runs away, that does not cause me to lose fun, it just means that I don't gain any more fun from him. See my earlier analogy with money: just because someone doesn't give me money, doesn't mean that I am losing money.

If somebody dents my car, sure I'll feel better if he pays to repair the damage, but whether he pays me or not, I do not want his car to be dented. That will not fix the dent in my car, or in any other way improve my life. I gain absolutely nothing from it, so why would I feel better if his car was dented as well?

But anyway, I don't think we're going to gain anything from arguing over whether or not running is a problem that should be punished. Even if it is a problem (which I think I have made clear, I do not think it is), I don't see that making repairs take time would solve it. Like I said in my first post, runners are not required to repair their ship, they can just sell it & buy a replacement, or /explode & buy a replacement. So making repairs take time wouldn't give players a reason not to run, anyway.

If ships are limited, then /explode would be less of an option. It think its a little funny that you can just buy a ship at any station. It would be better for just a few shipyard stations (possably owned by the manufacture) with a good selection of ships, and everyone else just has busses or maybe one other applicable ship for sale.

Ohh and I thought I made my point about fun being relative in my very sarcastic post above but I will say it much more simply. Fun is relitive. Fun is not quanifiable, its a fuzzy feeling that can only be increased with good game design instincts, a healthy dose of suspintion of disbelief, and a lot of luck. Arguing that X will increase Fun by Y is pointless, you cannot just add fun like adding apples.

I know that if some jerk trashed my bike, didn't have insurance, and didn't pay me for the damage, wrecking his ride would make me feel much better. But I would settle for having his licence revoked, and car impounded. The cops dont take kinly to "fixing" your own problems.

Reason why I stated that the system should put those X's in. Not to mention that I did state that it was pointless discussing about equations in my first post in here since anybody can prove anything, as long as he takes the correct starting hypothesis. Not to mention that to some people fun is exactly a quantifiable item. Since it is all dpendable on perception which differs from each person. I'm sure that if person x succeeds in point one and then in point 2 and then in point 3 it increases his fun with a certain number. How much is out of the question but in the end the fun is in deaad quantifiable to this person. (although this does not count for me)

Nor did I ever state that to the opponent should happen anything in the ways of a vigilante action, there should however be a punishment as you so nicely agreed with me. Since you wouldn't mind him having to pay for damages. Still for some people paying the damages would be worse then gettign a dent in his car and he would have preffered the dent. (I know I would, since I drive a 20+ year old dented audi, why would I care to see another bump on it... as long as it ain't a total loss). Once more fun and loss of fun is dependable on each person, But even if only 1 person has a lack of fun due to 1 action in the end there will be a lack of fun on average. And the exact cost of this lack of fun is meaningless.

PS: I'm just discussing, please don't take this personal since nothing what I post is intended as personal. I however find a discussion stimulating and educative. Not to mention that it helps in brushing up my vocabulary :D

Well I can tell you have never DMed a game of D&D if you think you can measure fun. I can also tell you have never done any game design. Many many people call a chalange less fun. They will piss, whine, and moan, about every little thing that gets between them and their eventual goal. But it is exactly these chalanges that provide the most enjoyment, because when you finally reach your goal you will find it very satisfying. The trick is not to make the chalanges so difficult you loose you audiance before they overcome the chalanges put before them.

In a MMO this means many diffrent levels of challange, with increasing difficulty, for more experenced players. With the rewards increasing accordingly (though not always in a measureable monitary value).

You will always, always, always, have some person telling you if you do X everyting will be so much fun. But with a game this young it is very important for the devs to stick with thier design framework. Take pirateing for example, make pirateing easier, and you will loose more merchents, they will find another way to make money, or they will quit the game. Without those merchents you can have no pirates.

Being a criminal is hard. I know several in real life, mostly drug addic looser ex-friends. The cost of failure is severe, the odds of sucess slim (in the long run), loyalty is a laughable quality, its only the dream of easy money, and cheap happyness that keeps them going.

Personally I find the devs desision to have pirates a brave one. Having a living breathing antagonist could, if done correctly, add much deapth and challenge to this game. But it must be rememberd that other games have tried giving to easy road to pirates, often your player base will just move on instead of face the challange of uneven odd stacked in favor of the bad guys. Trading should be easy its the most basic element of the game. It shouldn't be easy everywhere, but the vast majority of trade runs should end in sucess. Pirating should only be for mature players (not socially mature, just mature skills in playing VO). It should be the higest challenge for the criminally minded.

In my opinion, the biggest problem for the pirates, is there is no other criminal option. There is nothing to move up from. They go straight from honerable citizen to hated criminal (regular game play to most difficult in the game). A more pratical approach would be in levels, first they are smugglers, then gun runners, then engage in light piracy (agenst NPC convoys, bots, stations, ect...) Then if the pirate is trully talanted and has learned to fight/avoid all the constant threats aginst him (people hate criminals, governments hate criminals, criminals hate criminals, haveing bounty hunters, police, and other criminal factions after your head should just become more and more common as you rise in ranks), only then dose the player engage in full scale PvP piracy.

Right now all the PvP pirates are asking for others to be nerfed because they have no way to engage in their chosen path. Vendetta Online is still a very shallow game. Trader vs Pirate should not just be ship vs ship combat, it should be a cat and mouse, but their are just not enough options yet. Possably when things like varyable radar systems, disabling weapons, radar masking (powering down, hiding insde an asteroid, approaching from the sun, stuff like that), ECM/ECCM are implamented then the options avalilabe to bothe piarte and trader will make their encounter much more than a 2 dimentional chase.

Traders will still run, thats what they do. If they wanted to fight you pirates they would not be flying a cargo ship, instead they would have a warship with a deadly loadout to collect on your bounty. Get use to it. If you dont enjoy the thrill of the chase then join the war effort. Any other complaining about your prey running away will now be regaurded as whining. You may have a possabel point that running is to easy, but if that is the case I would have to say that a pirates ability to navigate civilised sectors of space is also to easy.

>you cannot just add fun like adding apples.

Of course not, that would be stupid.

Adding fun is like adding monkeys.

Forlarren, running is _way_ too easy. when I trade I'm perfectly safe, wherever I go, at all times. there is no semblance of balance as there are only two paths that are possible to have success in with VO now, trading and mining.

Huh? Now people are trying to ban retreating? Noooo. Sorry, I strongly disagree. If you don't want people to run, arrange a duel. That's why it's there.

Once meaningful missions are implemented and once more players join the universe, the "fun factor" won't be a problem. You just need to look at the bigger picture. There'll be plenty of targets to go around for everyone to shoot at later on. And people will continue to retreat, because that's what you do in battles when you're in grave danger.

But for its worth I do believe the repairs should take time. I'd say up to 30 seconds, depending on the amount of damage taken. I made a suggestion about this before. It won't restrict you to sitting at a station and waiting there while you twiddle your thumbs either. You'll be able to switch ships while your other one gets repaired.

And I do think a follow feature should be implemented, so anyone can have some chance of chasing their target down for the final kill shot. But I've pounded that argument to the ground more times than I'd like to imagine. So I'll just leave it at that.