This is so ridiculous...

[Thwart]

did someone say POINTS
/endtension

NOpe! No points here for you to steal!

[warhead2]

the problem is that we are referring to other player (at least I do) has "teammates" when it is possible to kill them using player monster. Isn't that kind of contradictory? I mean, in the end, we always come back to the root of the same problem that have been bugging me for so long, "the damn player monsters" that, in my opinion, should not be "against" the humain players, but should be either friendly or doing the isolated combat thing.

I just wanted to say i agree with Franky on that one. I too see it as contradictory that on a group of servers where team play is encouraged that we have this feature which encourages teamates to kill one another.

the addition of reclamation coins do help a lot now and make this more tolerable, but if it's found that a feature must be made tolerable than to me that says the feature should be considered for removal. even with the coins it is still contradictory in my opinion and i would prefer that non friendly pm's be removed. granted because of the coins i will use the feature more now. who knows maybe it would grow on me but so far, no, but i will keep an open mind seeing as how you are trying to make it work. the friendly pm thing i think is uber cool however and thanks for that addition, and there are other ways to make that available without the need to turn on one's teammates. everybody could get a coin at match startup, coins could be rewarded for certain feats, etc etc. even dedicate pm's could be friendly. thanks for your consideration.

[DW_Ant]

I just wanted to say i agree with Franky on that one. I too see it as contradictory that on a group of servers where team play is encouraged that we have this feature which encourages teamates to kill one another.

the addition of reclamation coins do help a lot now and make this more tolerable, but if it's found that a feature must be made tolerable than to me that says the feature should be considered for removal. even with the coins it is still contradictory in my opinion and i would prefer that non friendly pm's be removed. granted because of the coins i will use the feature more now. who knows maybe it would grow on me but so far, no, but i will keep an open mind seeing as how you are trying to make it work. the friendly pm thing i think is uber cool however and thanks for that addition, and there are other ways to make that available without the need to turn on one's teammates. everybody could get a coin at match startup, coins could be rewarded for certain feats, etc etc. even dedicate pm's could be friendly. thanks for your consideration.

Player monsters is more of a bold element that greatly amplifies teamwork. It's not so much that it'll make the game easier, it's an element that amplifies difficulty for allowing comrades die. Knowing this burden, players are encouraged to keep each other alive. Not rushing objectives, actively healing/helping, are all elements that are encouraged to keep players alive. When more players die, the tougher the game should get.

Unfortunately, it has been given a negative image because people treat each other with too much pride. Player monsters try to spawn kill, kill players during cutscenes, or find ways to exploit the map using pms (like triggering the bridge during the Utopia trials is an old example). Many of these things are being addressed or were fixed already. At the same time, the human attackers are often overprotective of their reputation/pride. Some individuals believe that they look bad when they are slain by a low level player monster. Also there are several players that play the game with such poor sportsmanship, I sometimes wonder why they play games if they can't tolerate defeats. I think people are afraid to become player monsters because they're afraid to hurt the players' feelings. When people are afraid to become hostile player monsters, it becomes an irregularity/unexpected occurrence to actually see a hostile player monster when one chooses to attack. I don't think players are accustomed to see regular hostile player monsters.


Here are the prime reasons why hostile player monsters exist.

1. Enhances game difficulty when more players die: When more players die, there is less obligation to rush the map. The survivors will go slower and slower since all of the pickups, exp, and time they can keep for themselves. Having human tactical monsters roaming around the map, the option to go slow is often eliminated because the hostile player monsters will often strike from places where they are most vulnerable. The survivors should not spend minutes waiting for a health or ammo pickups to respawn. Survivors should not move slow as a turtle. There are dead players waiting to get back in the game. The alternative was to greatly amplify the monster attributes based on the percent dead. Not only resistances are pierced, but monsters have extra damage, extra health, lower score (less exp), greater speed, etc... Something sufficient enough where a rank 4 Paladin (tank build) will not be able to survive. But that wont completely resolve the issue. Since the survivors will find ways to get the AI monsters stuck, or find a safe spot in the map. I'd figured the player monsters are the better way to go since the game is still beatable even with 95% piercing damage, and hostile player monsters encourage a much faster pace (strives the attackers to keep moving).
2. Gives dead players something to do: Players came in the game to play, and they should be able to play, not wait 20 minutes after they die. Players should be more proactive with their participation in the assault (both in human and monster team). Sure Iso Combat is a nice add-on, but that doesn't resolve the issue. People claim that this is all about the experience. They want to level their character. The Isolated Combat wont do any good if it's not relevant to the game. It's currently structured so that they can become stronger monsters the more they kill in the game. Putting exp reward in Iso Combat will most likely encourage players to get themselves killed because they may get more exp in Iso Combat than the actual assault.
   
   Awhile ago, we've done an experiment with Cubes 4 All. Had two versions of the map. One with player monsters, one without. The non player monster version, people did like initially (specially the high levels). The dead players, often just quit. When there are about 1-3 survivors left, the game dragged on. They would sit by the health vials regenerating health whenever they get hit, and the dead just left the game (often clearing the server by the end of the match).
   
   However, I'm not saying this is always the case. A mapper can design a non player monster map. Having nonrespawnable pickups, sections you can't retreat to, time sensitive objectives, and aggressive AI monsters is a great setup for a non player monster map. But then you'll have other issues to consider (rushers completing objectives early, or players picking up most pickups, or monsters not being able to reach to every corner in the map). Just more things a mapper has to consider.
3. Unpredictable monster behavior: No AI tactics can compare to normal human tactics. Notice how much tougher the game becomes when there is one dedicated monster. Outside of player monster abilities and health regeneration, the player monster is actually often weaker than the normal AI monsters. Skaarj run slower, Xenos have longer lunge time, all melee monsters have a melee delay, doom monsters are half as strong (damage and health), some monsters have caped health (like the warlords), etc...
   But what makes them much tougher than the AI monsters is their intelligence. Human player monsters know not to behave like the AI. Players know where the monsters will dodge to next. Players know where the AI monsters will come from. Players know when the AI will strike. They can't predict these actions from a human player monster. Human player monsters know to strike from places the players least suspect. Human player monsters know how to hide and retreat from human players. Player monsters know which human player to attack. Because of this extra intelligence, the non player monsters, are forced to be on their feet. Check the corners, the bushes, from behind, etc... I really think this basic element adds additional intense gameplay experience. After all, this is a game about team collaboration. Here is when you can see if you are truly practicing teamwork or not. Unless the player monster spawned a lucifer or something, the team can surely hold together with communication, strategy, and execution. You can really test to see if you are an adaptive/experienced player when you test yourself against human monsters. I guess in a way, it also tests your character, too. People really can see your sportsmanship-like conduct when they see your reactions after getting killed. Do you throw a fit, cuss at them, insult them, or do you applaud the player monster for their execution?
4. Adds another perspective in the game: One of the reasons why I created this mod is to have something different. I knew from the beginning that the limited number of maps will be repetitive, and I was quite worried about that. It's still is a concern today. However, there are popular servers out there that only cycles through the same 1-2 maps (specially those that cycle through Face and Torlan). Even through they play through the same map(s) over and over again, the games are different. The simple element of player vs player leads to a different game. Knowing that each game will be different because the player monster will attack from a different angle, or in another room, or as a different monster, there will be a different game. When there is a different game, the repetition quickly fades. The intensity is greatly amplified, and people are entertained (assuming they act maturely).
   
   Also this adds another option to play the same map in a different style. Tired of playing the same map? Try playing the map with a completely different look. Join the monster team, and you'll find just how difficult it is to stop the attackers. If you take your role seriously, you'll find just how intense it is to plan your attack, time your attack, and executing your attack. This simple element adds perspective and adds variation to your games. But if we have players who are afraid to become player monsters, then we'll have players complaining about the lack of maps since matches will become repetitive.

Regarding to your concern about dedicated monsters. I'm not entirely happy with the current system either. I am currently working on redesigning the dedicated monster system. It's still under alpha testing.
I will not pull the dedicated monsters because of future map projects where dedicated monsters are the focus.[/color]

[omg]

Biggest problem with pms is latency, easy to hit AI with predictable movements but not pms because there so unpredictable.
hitting a player hugger is like trying to hit seekers on iguaza for me.
Apart from that pms are fun when you have a dedi teammate but boring when zerk is spamming shock combo or necro spamming his curse.
(maybe set server to give some sort of time delay to match highest ping player to all players so high ping players are at a less of a disadvantage?)

Also the wrong maps are always full of pms (usually the hard/moderate maps) as its easier to kill players, while maps with low xp and lots of hp seem to drag on
only low lvl players get enough xp to spawn a gd monster or selection of dedi monsters are rubbish (sitting ontop of player with metriod on cubes/knocks and not hitting player due to latency -_-).
wish i could make enough points to seek revenge after being killed by low lvl.

omg

[SomethingToSay]

Ugh... certainly understanding why people get anti-noob

I was support playing with a paladin and a berserk, I keep making adren for the paladin and putting it literally right next to him, but he doesn't pick it up. Then the berserk comes back and picks it up for booster. Even after I explicitly say Im giving the paladin adren to do health it continues... ffs

So then, of course, to reward me for being charitable and trying to help the team, I die. :|

And of course, this is the thing. If I sit here and say 'wtf is this, I'm trying to be a team player and help the team, and I'm getting screwed over for it', and I say why is 'such and such' being such a ... and anti-team player, then I get people like Thwart coming after ME for that, saying 'oh stop being negative you're being so anti-team' blah blah? Uh... WHAT? So it sends me a very strong message that we should all be selfish pricks, ignore any type of teamwork, and not complain about anything since we aren't getting screwed for trying to help others.




Ant, I don't think the level of the person matters tbh. It's NORMALLY not about oh wow someone level 43 killed me, it's more just about being killed period, or in some cases, a particular player killing you.

Along that line, I also think that most of the time people treat defeats poorly due to WHY it was a defeat. Generally if it's say, 7 people in the server, and 6 are dead, it's courtesy to let the last one try and finish the objective, but if a PM came in and just killed them at the last moment, that could be angering to everyone else, not just the person killed, and discourteous.



With the rules in place now, there's a much different dynamic for PMs and people do understand why others become PMs, it's not near as bad as it was in terms of how people feel about it. I do think you did a great move in terms of PM stuff this past update, and it did help a lot with that, thanks.

Enhances game difficulty when more players die: When more players die, there is less obligation to rush the map. The survivors will go slower and slower since all of the pickups, exp, and time they can keep for themselves. Having human tactical monsters roaming around the map, the option to go slow is often eliminated because the hostile player monsters will often strike from places where they are most vulnerable. The survivors should not spend minutes waiting for a health or ammo pickups to respawn. Survivors should not move slow as a turtle. There are dead players waiting to get back in the game. The alternative was to greatly amplify the monster attributes based on the percent dead. Not only resistances are pierced, but monsters have extra damage, extra health, lower score (less exp), greater speed, etc... Something sufficient enough where a rank 4 Paladin (tank build) will not be able to survive. But that wont completely resolve the issue. Since the survivors will find ways to get the AI monsters stuck, or find a safe spot in the map. I'd figured the player monsters are the better way to go since the game is still beatable even with 95% piercing damage, and hostile player monsters encourage a much faster pace (strives the attackers to keep moving).

This is a big big thing I disagree with you on. I think that PMs often do the exact opposite of what you say.

Say we're on Opp Knocks, and 6 players are playing, and 5 are dead, the last one is a rank 3. Unless all 5 of those players attack at once, which NEVER happens, when they come at that rank 3 individually, they have no shot. Meaning everyone is going to sit there and watch the PMs dance around with the rank 3 for a while until the rank 3 inevitably kills them. Now we've wasted another minute for nothing, AND the rank 3 will now go heal up again, making the wait even more. This isn't a case of "oh there are PMs behind us, lets hurry up and jump forward so they disappear", that only would make sense if it's a low level that can't handle the PM. Otherwise we're wasting our time in a death match and it takes LONGER.


I disagree about iso, I think most of the time that you're going to have a case where it's still a higher XP gain in-game than in there.

If you made iso even just 1/2 XP per kill, or 1 XP per kill, that would give rank 4's like omg something to do on rank 1 maps that isn't hurting the team and is still getting him a little bit of XP, plus, since people may opt for that rather than keep trying and failing as weak crappy PMs and wasting everyone's time that way, it could have a more positive effect on everyone.


Even if you had that Cubes situation, adding PMs may not mean anything. Just because players stay on the server doesn't mean they're actually having fun. What's fun in spawning as a crappy krall, taking on those rank 4's, and dying? Or wasting 20 minutes in iso, getting just 1 monster token per kill(which can be very sparse on bigger iso maps, finding those stupid low level monsters), and by the time you finally get a monster strong enough to MAYBE compete for 5 seconds, they've completed the objective and now you're annoyed at wasting time?

[warhead2]

Well Ant i appreciate your well stated reasons and respect them. I hope too that you will understand and respect that this feature has different effects on different people and not everyone will see it or react to it as you do:

-what you call "challenge" others may call "annoying"
i for one just want to play the map and the presence of pm's usually just annoy me because they take the simple enjoyment of just playing the map away from me. do i see a pm and say "o boy a challenge"? No. I just see them as obstacles to my enjoying the map, and i do enjoy the maps.

-what you call "enhance" others may call "ruined"
how many maps have been totally short circuited by pm's and the map was over barely after it started, or perhaps worse even mid way through? now when that happens do we say "o boy that was a fun and different challenge"? Um, no, generally the comments that get thrown out or felt is "another map ruined by pm's"

for lots of people it's not about pride. yes i know that is there for some people and that's find by me and i understand that but take me for example i think everyone knows by now that i am happy go lucky kind of guy find 1000 ways to kill myself in various servers and have fun doing it, it's just how i am, so dying itself really doesn't set me off and i think for lots of people its the same. i simply find pm's don't enhance my experience, for me personally they detract from it and i generally feel annoyed by them, cause i just want to play the map, and that's just the way i feel about it and the way they impact me.

i am not sure how they can enhance the game experience when there is no reliable way to generate that experience. it's not like people say "wow the pm encounter was cool let's do it again". the game doesn't really offer that. the way pm's enter the game is no sporadic and unpredictable that you really don't have any basis or point of reference to enjoy the encounter or anticipate a similar one in a future game. it's not like regular assault where you play one side but then next round you join the other side, and the game itself imposes that on you so that you have some sort of reliable point of reference to enjoy the experience from.

it is as you said, pm's today are not regular enough for us to get that point of reference and common experience. perhaps some changes to the feature can help facilitate that. maybe like regular assault half the team has to become pm's, etc and stuff like that.

and also better rules should be followed imo. right now pm's can spawn as huggers and also teleport themselves right in front of other players and these things really break the standard game rules. pm's ought to be forced, imo, to play by the rules the other monsters have to. other monsters generally don't insta-kill you or teleport right to you, they genrally have to walk and fire guns and play by the rules, queens and ssr guys of course being exceptions to some of that.

for lots of people it's not really about hurt feelings, we just follow the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you. if i don't want my game experience to be upset by some pm then that will give me some pause before becoming one myself. i think more than a matter of "feelings", it's more just a matter of courtesy. i want to play the game and don't want someone taking me out, nor do i wish to rob someone else of playing the game. i have made some pm kills in my time and i only felt that i was robbing them of their online game experience and never got that feeling "hey i just enhanced their online experience". yet, in other game types like ONS, DM, etc, i have never once had that feeling that i was somehow detracting from their experience, but rather the opposite. i think the pm feature needs some more changes to make that positive side of it to happen like it does for other game types.

it's not like this in regular assault, onslaught, death match, etc, you do want the opponent to come after you and you want a piece of them too, but in this game i am not getting that experience at all, i have only found the pm annoying (not always however). again, i think this boils down to the game being able to give us some reliable and repettitive structure for experiencing human opponenets like other game types do.

i play invasion mods for a reason. i like to play against ai monsters. it brings a refreshing change from the stock ut style of play. when i want human oppenents i play tam, dm, br, etc etc. those other game types know what they are about. i think this game type is still a tad confused about what it is about. is it playing against ai driven monsters or is it death match or round driven assault against human players? i for one play these servers because i enjoy the ai monsters and the SpamTastic experience and when i want hard competition against humans which requires holding spam to a minimum i have a good variety of choices and i go there. i am not against putting the human competive experience into this but that's not why i came to DW and i don't find this server is really giving me that experience anyways. playing against monster ai is the main reason to be here and smarter AI is one of the selling points of the server, and quite frankly, i like what's you've done with the monster ai.

so i have yet to experinece what you said. i have not found my game experience improved by this feature. believe me, i find your reasons well stated and i am open minded to experience what you say, but so far this has not happened for me. perhaps more changes can help with this, as i allude to above. the coins are an excellent addition however and i hope you do more stuff like that.

anways i am not really trying to argue it out, i just want to make sure you understand how some of us feel about it. i certainly understand and appricate your reasons and am open to it, but i have yet to experience anything like you have mentioned that pm's are supposed to do for the game. i'll keep trying i guees but also hope you will make change to help facilitate the pm's to a positive experience for all.

[El_Salvador_503]

PMs been a problem, I agree with War most of the players will not kill others unless they don't like the player or they have something against him, like for me ill not kill somebody as a pm if that never has never done it to me, but if he does ill try to kill him nect time I can, that's how the mayority of players think,My opinion is if you are a rank 4 and low levels are around then Make another char, like me 3 high level chars and I use them depending on the map and party, that's plenty of time to play all maps and be useful for the team and all that gives the time for others to get the chars high too with the time all people will be high level server just needs more maps.....Also this is one idea: About removing PMs and if. Player dies piercing will get up as always for everyone but instead of remaining dead after a certain amount of time you will respawn but piercing will be same for all but if you die again the piercing will be same but when you respawn it will be double for you and so on, Also that will require a full revision of the abilities so they don't get exploited, I don't know if this is a good idea but let me know what you Guys think

[Azmodan]

I like the PMs on the server, only problem I got is the amount of ppl that can become dedicated at a time.

How am I supposed to get anywhere when 3 out of 6 people are dedicated? Rush the objectives so that the low players get revived? So that the dedicated can just rape them again within seconds? Most of the time when that happens its the high lvl players who don't like a player or a map and most of the time they got the curse ability as well so it ends even sooner.

I would suggest dedicated rate at 25% of the players, so you need at least 4 people in the game before one can go dedicated 1 on 3 and next one at 8 players, 2 on 6. Finally 3 on 9.

[DW_FrankyTheFly]

When someone try to kill me, or succeed to do it, I just want to get their head afterward. I then stop being focus on the objective until I obtain vengeance. When I back up a little to think about it I realize that doing so "trap" me in a endless cycle of "I'm not going to stop until your dead B****", and honestly I don't really like that has it "destroyed the essence" of a cooperative match. No matter what changes are brought to PM I have a very strong certitude: Deathmatch and Cooperative DO NOT mix well together, period.

That's why I think PM should just be removed... and Sal idea is the best!!!

[Thwart]

Thwart coming after ME for that, saying 'oh stop being negative you're being so anti-team' blah blah? Uh... WHAT?

lol, thank you for bringing me back into the conversation. :sclapping:
It seems like you like to create scenarios in your mind between yourself and another person and assume where they would take a stand in a particular situation. That is fine and okay to do, but please don't mix up fantasy with the truth.
I never told you to "stop being so anti-team." In fact, I could care less how you play in ME. I just enjoy arguing with you, because often times you don't have a very sound explanation to your reasoning, which has been a pet peeve of mine. See example below...

I was support playing with a paladin and a berserk, I keep making adren for the paladin and putting it literally right next to him, but he doesn't pick it up. Then the berserk comes back and picks it up for booster. Even after I explicitly say Im giving the paladin adren to do health it continues... ffs

So you're mad because the paladin won't pick up your adren, or the berserk decides to pick it up instead because the paladin won't pick it up?

So then, of course, to reward me for being charitable and trying to help the team, I die. :|

The true idea of charity is to voluntarily give help to those in need without having the motivation or intention of obtaining any reward in return. So being charitable probably isn't the best word to describe your situation. I assume when you say "trying to help the team", and when you die as a consequence, what you're really saying is you died because you could not get health in return for your adrenaline? Otherwise I don't see the connection that you died for trying to help the team. Rather it is more like you're trying to help yourself, but since you didn't get anything out of helping your teammates, then you see no point in being generous. You scratch my back, I scratch yours? I don't blame you. Just nitpicking here to show you the holes in your argument.

And of course, this is the thing. If I sit here and say 'wtf is this, I'm trying to be a team player and help the team, and I'm getting screwed over for it', and I say why is 'such and such' being such a ... and anti-team player, then I get people like

me who hardly even plays on a regular basis so I can take notice that you're even on ME.

I don't know why you seem to be getting screwed all the time by other players and I'm sorry for that, but when I do play, I don't ever feel like I'm being screwed. Maybe that is saying something.

Regarding the more important issue here that is player monsters, I don't disagree what has already been said about it. I just don't mind it as much as others seem to do apparently. However, I do agree with what Azmodan had to say about the dedicated monsters.