Cross Mind Power Theory

[Fang Archbane]

Ive been thinking on some ideas as to how Boss Heads could be implemented to both keep it half on and half off so to speak.

If some editing was done to the code, we could essentially allow cross mind power fights but also keep it newbie friendly.

All wed have to do is make it so "Fair Fights" only gets triggered when fighting someone outside your own Mind Power.

This means that if an MP5 fought an MP5, all stats/tokens/combo counter would apply.

But if, for example, an MP5 or MP4 fought an MP3 it would trigger "Fair Fights".

In this way, we can enable cross Mind Power Aid and still keep it fair.

Thank you for your time, comment below if yay or nay and why.

[Aia del Mana]

I presently remain at the Fourth Mind-Power, and find that there were few within the realm that may spar with me.

If this were to occur, I should think that one must also break the limit of creature ascension - those of the Third Mind Power must be able to upgrade a creature to maximum as one of the Fifth Mind Power - otherwise, even in a fight that were made 'fair', one wouldst still be far overmatched fighting one of greater Mind Power.

[Eon]

I don't like the idea of these having to be "fair" fights. I get the desire to want to be able to have more people to train on/train with, but it makes no sense to handicap strong players so you and your buddies get to train without any downside. If you are bothered by higher MP's attacking, form a group and go somewhere. Try to get something created that makes it difficult for people like me to beat on your training groups. "Fair" fights for cross MP training look like a lazy and unimaginative way to deal with a possible "issue" in game.

 

My opinion on what should happen: Remove skill damage from the game entirely, then you shouldn't have to worry about anything. Getting smashed without skill damage really isn't a big deal these days (training groups, spells to give ve, certain creatures. People should be able to train just fine). Skilldamage is the only thing anyone should be complaining about since I've got my skill damage stat so high. Skilldamage has become so ingrained in my character that I do feel like I'd be losing out greatly if it was removed, but in my opinion it shouldn't have been put into the game to begin with and has been the single most devastating thing to happen to this game. Deal with the real problem and be done with it.

[MRWander]

36 minutes ago, Eon said:

I don't like the idea of these having to be "fair" fights. I get the desire to want to be able to have more people to train on/train with, but it makes no sense to handicap strong players so you and your buddies get to train without any downside. If you are bothered by higher MP's attacking, form a group and go somewhere. Try to get something created that makes it difficult for people like me to beat on your training groups. "Fair" fights for cross MP training look like a lazy and unimaginative way to deal with a possible "issue" in game.

 

My opinion on what should happen: Remove skill damage from the game entirely, then you shouldn't have to worry about anything. Getting smashed without skill damage really isn't a big deal these days (training groups, spells to give ve, certain creatures. People should be able to train just fine). Skilldamage is the only thing anyone should be complaining about since I've got my skill damage stat so high. Skilldamage has become so ingrained in my character that I do feel like I'd be losing out greatly if it was removed, but in my opinion it shouldn't have been put into the game to begin with and has been the single most devastating thing to happen to this game. Deal with the real problem and be done with it.

 

Spoiler

Martyr and or regen/massive healing also burn against a lower mind power could severely  hinder/ruin a lower mind power account so I personally don't think that just removing skill damage would make a difference.

Then we'd also go back to massively farming losses and honor issues for new mp5's which is why it was implemented in the first place if you remember

[klatdees]

I agree that skill damage did a lot of the game-ruining.  I think it would be conceptually OK to change skill damage to a more temporary effect, with no "true"/permanent loss of stats.  Make the stats come back after an hour or 24 hours or a week or death or something.

Edited December 21, 2017 by klatdees

[Eon]

20 minutes ago, MRWander said:

Martyr and or regen/massive healing also burn against a lower mind power could severely  hinder/ruin a lower mind power account so I personally don't think that just removing skill damage would make a difference.

How so? By getting capped too quickly? I see no problem with that, there are plenty of MP5's with garbage stats who get by just fine. They still manage to train alright. If you are referring to their VP numbers getting screwed up, then that should be looked into specifically.

28 minutes ago, MRWander said:

Then we'd also go back to massively farming losses and honor issues for new mp5's which is why it was implemented in the first place if you remember

How is that any different from now? New Mp5's/MP5's not in an alliance are majority of the time worth negative honor for most of us MP5's. They actually get decent honor gains for attacking us who are stuck at balance, right?

[Eon]

5 minutes ago, klatdees said:

I think it would be conceptually OK to change skill damage to a more temporary effect, with no "true"/permanent loss of stats.  Make the stats come back after an hour or 24 hours or a week or death or something.

That would absolutely defeat the purpose of skilldamage in the first place. It was put in to slow the growth of monsters like me, this was Mur's specific reason for it which he told me multiple times. It did slow the growth tremendously, but whats it matter when I already had such high stats to begin with anyways. The numbers were already broken.

 

Temporary skilldamage would be worse than no skilldamage at all, since temporary skilldamage would just be a pathetic illusion.

[MRWander]

15 minutes ago, Eon said:

That would absolutely defeat the purpose of skilldamage in the first place. It was put in to slow the growth of monsters like me, this was Mur's specific reason for it which he told me multiple times. It did slow the growth tremendously, but whats it matter when I already had such high stats to begin with anyways. The numbers were already broken.

 

Temporary skilldamage would be worse than no skilldamage at all, since temporary skilldamage would just be a pathetic illusion.

Ah, I had heard it was implemented because too many players were complaining about not being able to fight due to low honor and not wanting to have to farm thousands of losses in order to play and people just got bored and quit instead.

[Eon]

48 minutes ago, MRWander said:

Ah, I had heard it was implemented because too many players were complaining about not being able to fight due to low honor and not wanting to have to farm thousands of losses in order to play and people just got bored and quit instead.

Oh no, definitely wasn't that as far as I'm aware, if you are actually talking about my skill damage stat.

Basically my point is that lower MP levels shouldn't be saved from having to deal with fighting higher MP's at full power if this cross MP thing happens. It's not even like the old days when people were given phenomenal amounts of personal heat off Angien rits, pushing them above and well beyond the heat cap. Technically it'll still be easy to cap people if you have high VE and mirror rit handy, but I don't think we even have anyone in this community that would do that to low MP's. Even I wouldn't do that to them unless one of them asked me to cap them and I wanted to help. The only thing that might be too strong when it comes to Cross MP fighting is my skill damage against them. They are already going to have low stats to begin with, If I can start beating on MP3's and 4's for decent periods of time, that stat loss could be a bit too discouraging for them and rightly so in my opinion. I also feel it discourages a lot of normal MP5's as well, so may as well kill two birds with one stone and remove the stat from the game entirely. It's very easy for most MP5's to out train my skill damage by a large margin, but for those that don't train much it does add up over time.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Eon

[Syrian]

i think MRF and Eon are talking about 2 different types of stat damage, MRf talking about the damage when you reach -1000 losses, and Eon his skill damage stat. i do believe there should be a counter to players getting too many losses , but it doesnt have to be stat damage, though it does serve the function well. as for Eon's, thats a tough subject as its something he earned, but if it was put in place to slow people's stat gain then i'ts already too late for that short of nuking everyone's stats back to 0 which is kind of a non option as thats one of the main draws for people. 

[Fang Archbane]

The 3 main issues i see are 

Heat capping lower MPs in too short a time span, due to Heat Dumps
Skill Damage because its detrimental to growth, regardless of % amount being low or high
Heat Syphons that shoot the Young Blood into such negative Value Points they cant train or recruit.

If Skill Damage was removed
A clickie to reset all Vp to a static 1000
And Lifeseteal/Martyr was not usable versus lower MPs

Then yes, in theory, we could rebalance the game with no downside to the Young Bloods growth.

[MRWander]

2 hours ago, Eon said:

Oh no, definitely wasn't that as far as I'm aware, if you are actually talking about my skill damage stat.

Basically my point is that lower MP levels shouldn't be saved from having to deal with fighting higher MP's at full power if this cross MP thing happens. It's not even like the old days when people were given phenomenal amounts of personal heat off Angien rits, pushing them above and well beyond the heat cap. Technically it'll still be easy to cap people if you have high VE and mirror rit handy, but I don't think we even have anyone in this community that would do that to low MP's. Even I wouldn't do that to them unless one of them asked me to cap them and I wanted to help. The only thing that might be too strong when it comes to Cross MP fighting is my skill damage against them. They are already going to have low stats to begin with, If I can start beating on MP3's and 4's for decent periods of time, that stat loss could be a bit too discouraging for them and rightly so in my opinion. I also feel it discourages a lot of normal MP5's as well, so may as well kill two birds with one stone and remove the stat from the game entirely. It's very easy for most MP5's to out train my skill damage by a large margin, but for those that don't train much it does add up over time.

Syrian nailed it on the head I thought you meant stat dmg from losses not your earned skill.

Also pm due to spoilers

[Ivorak]

There's some good discussion in this thread, but I'm not here to comment on that at the moment, just wanted to throw another suggestion into the ring.

We have sanctuaries where people can avoid being attacked (under most circumstances), why not the opposite as well: an arena where everyone can be attacked, regardless of mind power.

I think one of these locations would be sufficient and two would be plenty. They should ideally be placed at a dead end, so that that new players aren't too prone to wandering through without intention.

And perhaps we could have the main lands vie for the honor of hosting this arena. I think a multi-stage combat tournament would be fitting.

[Fang Archbane]

Ivoraks suggestion just reminds me of the glory days of the GGG. But in all seriousness, as long as these "Arenas" are placed directly next to a Sanctuary scene, im all for it. Unless Stat Damage does get removed, in which case, we could just implement Arena on its own.

And as for Eons handicap comment, he and the rest of MD know all too well that simply having a large creature roster, and access to secret cross crit buffs (Like most veterans do) is more than enough to sway a fight in their favor vs literally anyone thats not a seasoned veteran. So please, Eon, in the name of all that is logical, try to think about what youre asking for. You want to be able to go 100% all you, when you know full well you dont need that to win, that if we were to simply activate Fair Fights across MP, you are still more than capable of beating anyone with your default 3 colored drachs + 1 black and white drach + 2 morph combo. Saying you need to be able to go full force... im sorry, thats a want, and nowhere near a need.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Fang Archbane

[Mallos]

I will make my opinion very clear: Allow fighting across mind power levels

[klatdees]

I was thinking about the same thing MRF/Syrian mentioned (excess losses causing skill damage).  It is annoying having so many people so far below balance...I'm curious whether this particular penalty even solved the issue, as I don't fight enough to know.

[Fang Archbane]

15 minutes ago, klatdees said:

I was thinking about the same thing MRF/Syrian mentioned (excess losses causing skill damage).  It is annoying having so many people so far below balance...I'm curious whether this particular penalty even solved the issue, as I don't fight enough to know.

It didnt, people just stay at 300-500 losses over wins to be in the safe honor margin, and smash alliance members such as myself (at permabalance) so they can earn moderately decent honor per slap and still self moderate wins/losses.

TLDR: Everyone not in a guild stays well in the win/loss golden ratio to safe farm honor

[Mallos]

Since that's out of the way I'll give some thoughts on the discussion here... I like Fang's idea in his original post the best, make "fair fights" trigger across mind power levels only, not within mind power levels, while allowing all mind powers to attack eachother.This way lower mp levels have a chance to win against higher mind power levels in combat. There are some pros and cons to this, an mp5 attacking an mp3 looking to get free wins will have to be aware that none of their stats/tokens will count in that fight, and a mp3 attacking an mp5 could assume they will have some advantage in this way. The way mind power levels are set up currently is such that being mp3 is worse than being mp4, mp4 worse than mp5 as far as combat is concerned. Worse meaning, less chance to be able to defeat those of a higher mind power level mainly due to creature restrictions and less principle choices, but also due to factors pertaining to less time spent within the game. While I do not exactly agree with the creature restrictions in place at mp3/4 it does give a slight sense of progression and fits with the narrative the game gives you. If adding cross mindpower level fights were to coincide with removing creature restrictions then we are removing much of what makes mindpower 3 and 4 what they are, early stages of the game to grow and learn how the game works in. If allowing all the mind power levels to attack eachother currently there is a large imbalance, that I think is best fixed by the "fair fights" being set to apply in cross mindpower level fights. Also, the BHC may have been affecting the way new players interacted with the guards in their fights, which may be a reason why fair fights within a mindpower level is not a good idea.

About Skill Damage... Don't remove Eon's skill damage, keep the functionality just give him an option to turn it on or off, or at worst, remove it from his profile if he agrees. His skilldamage is far from the worst thing to happen to the game, perhaps the lack of new players is the worst thing, I saw what it did to the players though. They ran from him, hid in sanctuaries, logged out etc. It's bad but at the end of it, people would rather not play or not train their stats/creatures than to take damage on their existing skills, even if the damage is negligible. They could overcome it they just didn't.
Skilldamage as a penalty that gets applied when you have 1000 more losses than wins is a decently effective penalty, I can't say if it was necessary or the only option but it works. Otherwise most people will rather sit at a high number of losses to not have to worry about honor, that or sit in balance for the extra stats. When you get to know the fighting system well enough you will learn that it's not that difficult to remain in or near balance, at least far from skill damage, but it can also take a bit of work.

Ivorak's arena system is an interesting proposition but I feel it's much more suitable to allow it anywhere, say if that mp3 wants a tour of the east from me while I help them train their creatures. I don't like the concept of forcing activity within a certain scene, it's like GGG without the player consent, they have to go there.

"Heat capping lower MPs in too short a time span, due to Heat Dumps
Heat Syphons that shoot the Young Blood into such negative Value Points they cant train or recruit."

To be honest, this is an issue really only to mp3s who want to stay at mp3, once you go mp4 you have the option to forever stay there and train if you like without the worry o f heat. The mind power levels were meant to be progressed through and I know some choose not to but that is a realm of its own (think twinks in world of warcraft, I'm sure other games have this).
"A clickie to reset all Vp to a static 1000" This is reasonable if you ask me.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Mallos

[Chewett]

12 hours ago, Fang Archbane said:

TLDR: Everyone not in a guild stays well in the win/loss golden ratio to safe farm honor

I’m in an alliance (I assume you mean that when you say guild) but I’m not at perma and am under the 1000 losses more than wins. I know a lot of people are so that’s not neasxarily true 

[Aia del Mana]

I suggest that Skill Damage couldst affect those of different Mind Power in different measure.

If one with skill damage doth attack one of the Third Mind-Power, it could be that such an attack would cause the loss of heat of the attacked, of the target (and not of creatures).

If one were to do so in higher Mind-Power levels, it could make such a target lose either wins or losses, dependent on that which they had in excess. This would remain in proportion to the excess - if one had one hundred losses in excess, one couldst lose ten of those losses as a result, restoring balance at more rapid a rate.

 

I would have it that attacking another of a different Mind-Power couldst not release heat from aught of the creatures of those at lower Mind-Power.

Yet, I understand that this too may be used against many in ways I had not the wisdom to realise.

 

[Sunfire]

skilldam stat

i wouldnt call skilldamage stat like Eon has the biggest problem currently, since you (Eon) are pretty much the only one left with it and your days of training are mostly left behind you i've seen. (unless you'd decide to return to your old habits since i dont see an actual BHC taking place any time soon)

fair fights against lower MPs:

MP3:
i believe this would be the answer to the risk discussed before (VP and VE) however i dont believe letting the mp3s fight at 100% of their stats even would give them a fair chance due to creature limitations and the low amount of stats on mp3 (with an exception of players like MRF but those are very rare) so people with bad intentions can always do harm, what you'd need is some common sense, however that is hard to code

MP4:
MP4 can join alliances and in doing so they can be freely attacked by allied mp5s, if we were to impose a fair fight system to mp4 it would create an inequality between the allied mp4s and the unallieds which i would argue is not how things are supposed to be, so i'd say no to the fair fight system against MP4. you could argue to also add the fair fight system to the allied mp4s but in my eyes that would go against the idea of an alliance

statdamage from 1k losses

i think this was a necessary fix to give some bottom of the losses but experienced fighters will make sure they wont make that number of losses if they use the excess losses system.  

arena

i can live with the arena scenes since then the young onse know the risk if they go there. however i would only accept it if said area was not monitored or controlled by some rules like fang wants to do with his MB training spot. it would positively affect player interaction since they'd need to agree on a training method (while leaving the option for having a role that doesnt go by any rules for instance) and will encourage them to experiment more and not just do some rubber duck training getting "free stats" while knowing nothing about how the combat system works (you can still see that with some fossils from the old GGG days).

[Fang Archbane]

After heavy consideration, i say we keep stat damage in game.

Both in over 1000 losses form, and the type that Eon and all other Boss Heads winners have earned.

[No one]

On 12/22/2017 at 8:15 AM, Mallos said:

"A clickie to reset all Vp to a static 1000" This is reasonable if you ask me.

There are already methods to reset your VP.

If you haven't experienced the negative 2-5million VP then you experienced anything in MD and you haven't tried to find a solution nor you worked for it. A clickie is a begger's choice, don't go there. We already have those lame shoes.

Cross MP fights ... yea, like that will be fair.

How would you consider a fair fight between a new born baby (aka noob, aka MP3) and and a bull (aka less then average MP5) ? like : "please don't" or "may I touch you?" or ...

...wth ? are you crazy ? there is a reason why there are MP levels in place : to filter players to their own level (of skill and /or stats). It is for their own protection or the players around them.

More fair then a cross MP fight would be a clickie that you can push once every 5 minutes and you get random skills. That would be more fair.

Skill damage for 1000+ loses ... well, I think you all avoid a spoiler when you omit the real reason for wanting to stay at that many loses:

• the skills you get by winning ANY fight even a non-damage one.
• nobody is crazy enough to attach you once you are that far below, they'd get negative honor in no time

So ... skill damage there is mandatory, otherwise ppl would just wander way too far down.

Unfortunately there is nothing to force a player to move out of the "red" zone like : having 900+ extra loses would give you a daily bonus of ever increasing negative stat. That way you either die at 0 stats or you fight to get out.

Edited December 28, 2017 by No one

[No one]

And I write this separately as it needs special attention: there is/was one other precedence for this cross MP fight(er) and if you don't know it ... you should research for it (pointing at Fang).

Being as he is, Fang, in his way is asking for just this : free stats.

If you (Fang) want to teach players in other MPs to fight (like anyone would believe you know how), you should create new characters (YES ALTS) and teach them.

If you want spar with some friends of yours in low MPs (meaning MP4), push them to an alliance. But then ... good luck finding an alliance to trust you in.

TLDR: there are other ways for an MP3/4 to learn to fight or to grow other then you begging for them.

[Kaya]

I do believe there is some merit in cross MP fighting, many MP3 and MP4 complain about how hard it is to find training partners. It should however come with some restrictions.

A very simple way to prevent abuse of new players is to prevent attacking lower MP players unless they attacked you first, after which they can be attacked for a while.

A different option to somewhat equalise things is to apply the creature restrictions of the lowest MP during a fight, adding some extra challengefor higher MP players as they should have creatures to counter all MPs.

23 minutes ago, No one said:

nobody is crazy enough to attach you once you are that far below, they'd get negative honor in no time

I can tell you out of experience that this is not the case, it might deter some people, but moist don't seem to care much.