Player Monster Changes

Anything and everything related to the Evolution server.
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DW_Ant
DW Clan Member
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:00 pm
Location: North Carolina

This forum post is to announce the player monster changes for next update.
  • Most of the hostile player monsters and the dedicated monster system will be removed.
  • Players will spawn with 3 friendly player monster tokens.
  • 0-score monsters will not cost a friendly monster token to summon.
  • Friendly monster tokens button in the player monster menu will be active by default.
  • 0-score monsters can spawn as hostile monsters.
  • It's possible that the facehugger and air drone bomber will be enabled for hostile monsters (pending tests).
  • Hostile pm abilities will be removed (Pickup Traps and Amp Damage). Players that purchased those abilities will have their stat points refunded.
  • Temporarily removed pm abilities such as Monster Strength and Resistances may be rebalanced. Stat cost for those abilities may be adjusted.
  • FPM monster requirements may be adjusted knowing that they can only be fpm controlled. FPMs that are strong against players but weak against monsters (such as the Dryosaurus, Angus, Electric Slith, Beam Waillord, etc...) will have reduced requirements. Powerful fpm monsters such as Earth Dragon, Ion Dragon, Titan, Carcharodontosaurus, etc... may have increased requirements.
The reasons for these changes are explained below.
Here are the pros and cons of the hostile player monster system.

Pros
  • As a human, you'll run into interesting encounters.
    • Players may run into tactical ambush points (ie: attack at unpredictable or inconvenient times).
    • Player monsters' attack behavior is different from the AI monsters (dodging patterns, attack intervals, human aiming, etc...)
  • As a dead player, you have something to do. This argument is no longer valid since we now have friendly player monster options.
  • A method to receive RPG data when you reentered the server as a dead player. This argument is no longer valid since we now have infinite 0-score friendly player monster options.
  • A method to slay idlers. 0-score hostile monsters are sufficient to accomplish this.
  • A method to trade lives. An example of this happening yesterday is when a player accidentally team killed another player, and this player offered to exchange their life to the player they killed. 0-score hostile monsters are sufficient to accomplish this.
  • Get to play as monsters that would be overpowered for fpms (such as titan, ion dragon, spinosaurus, etc...). To counter this, I can have a fpm-version of those monsters.
  • Provides a different gameplay perspective.
Cons
  • Hostile player monsters often causes hostility between players: people leave the server, player monsters are the root of many grudges, I get E-mail complaints, people kick vote others for being a monster, quickly diminishes the friendly atmosphere when one is killed, etc...
  • Players become hostile player monsters to get revenge upon individuals.
  • Players use hostile player monsters a method to sabotage the team or to end the map early. I don't find it fair that it just takes one player with a high score to be able to end the map (even if everyone else wants to play the map). Sometimes you can even end the map with a low score.
  • Hostile monsters are not balanced. It's not even remotely fair if the players need to fight against a player monster Spinosaurus.
  • The PvE aspect often conflicts with individuals who only want to play in co-op.
  • Significantly slows down the map progression.
  • I don't find it fair that the high score player (often means the veteran) can decide to kill another player (often a low level new player), for a resurrection. Causing the veteran to play some more, and the new player to wait some more.
  • Spawns more server rules to be reinforced. In the past we had issues with players sticking nades on hostile pms to be suicide bombers, players being useless hostiles to give free xp/souls/adren, and pms blocking AI monsters. Dedicated monsters had a host of rules to enforce, too.
Ultimately, I've decided to remove the hostile player monsters for I find the cons outweigh the pros. Hostile player monsters are fun, but that fun is not worth the expense of others' enjoyment.
The difference between successful people from others is
not in the lack of strength,
not in the lack of knowledge,
but rather in the lack of will.

FFE466

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Taries
Camper
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:35 am
Location: Czech Republic

I do not like this, you basicaly get rid of one of basic things for ME, also what will be the point of rooms on maps, where you can get tokens? You can farm tokens there only with hostile PM, and after like 50 tokens, those basic monsters will have no chance to survive. If there are problems with players geting in conflict, then those should be discussed between the players and admin, admin can read the logs, you can decide who is guilty.
There are visible problems between Veterans and Noobs(do not take word noob as insult in this case), if you see veteran join, it does not imply that he want play hard maps and carry you, we veterans also have noob chars, and we know the maps very good, we play here for like 4 years, tbh I think on some maps the limiter should stay, I realy do not thing rank 1 should join extreme maps like RobotFactory,Divine,Utopia,Iguazu, even there if you are good, you still play map that is not meant for your rank and level, in most cases you slow down the team. Wanted to write more, but have to go to work now. Just remember, there are other ways to ruin the fun, even without PM, in the end you might end up removing and chaning certain abilities...
DW_Ant
DW Clan Member
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:00 pm
Location: North Carolina

I'll be phasing out the Iso Combat rooms as I update the maps. With 0 score inf fpms, it's still possible to gain stronger monsters by becoming monsters.

It's not a matter of individuals disliking the player monsters. It has been a significant portion of the server population that's at a disagreement with hostile player monsters. This has been going an ongoing conflict ever since pms were introduced. I haven't pulled the player monsters in the past since I was hoping this would be something players can grow into. Over the course of 5 years, new players and even veterans still dislike the hostile player monsters.

PvP player monsters may be going away, but the PvE player monsters remain. I think replacing the hostile player monsters with friendly player monsters will reduce the likelihood of causing players from disliking one-another.
The difference between successful people from others is
not in the lack of strength,
not in the lack of knowledge,
but rather in the lack of will.

FFE466

_________________________
{F}{AH}{CivFR}{XC}{U}{DF}{CJ}{SD}
DW_WailofSuicide
DW Clan Member
Posts: 1634
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 12:00 am

Fundamentally probably the right move even though it feels weird to be doing this so late into the game's development. The crossover for a player that wants a cooperative PvE experience and the player that wants the semi-competitive PvP experience is small. I think this is something that I mostly argued for years ago, but it's honestly hard to even remember that far back. The big caveat would be: This can definitely work as long as it's an opt-in server experience. But with only one server this is the best solution for the most players.
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christmas
1337 Haxor
Posts: 237
Joined: Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:30 pm

hello all, sup ?

omg how long i've been off? however i check forums once a month.

i can add another 127 points on the "Cons" section you mentioned Ant, just out of my head.
I told you once the pm should be removed since they werent monitored.
while, on the other hand, i would love to see more "dedi".

althought im not active the last period, i consider that if you are getting complaints from players there, you must remove them.

ps: did you remove the "piercing" factor ?
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