Discussion Why Do You Think Servers Fail?

[unkynd]

I think after all the years of people opening servers mainly for donations it finally killed the fanbase, players don't trust servers like they use to and with the game being so old now, people play other games rather than waste time, maybe donation money and energy on guessing if this server will last. Also, for Americans it's extremely hard to find other Americans so that hurts that particular type of player.

Edited February 25, 2015 by unkynd

[Eagle_Eye]

They fail because they start on the 1st place.

My point is,it's freaking L2.

This game is meant to be in the garbage bin.Not the the recycle bin.

I know it's not the most productive comment but that's my opinion.(no toxic intention)

[Gries]

To describe why l2j servers are failing from time to time i am going to quote an upcoming MMO article:

(probably some of you might have read this already)

Every Thanksgiving, my family gets together for a game of RISK.  Only it’s not “let’s play Risk every thanksgiving” – it’s “let’s pick up from where we left last year, in the SAME game of Risk.”

The same game.  The same conflict.  Year after year after year:
Imagine that, in year 2, Uncle Bob starts winning.
In year 3, Uncle Bob presses the advantage.  By the end of this game session, Bob basically owns the board.
Fast forward 10 years.  We’re still playing that same game.  Uncle Bob is now an unassailable tyrant.
The other players (i.e. everyone other than Uncle Bob) all wander away from the board to watch football or something – because they know they don’t stand a chance.  If a new player joins the game, Bob snuffs them out in their infancy, and they quit immediately.

Everyone is bored.  Even Uncle Bob is bored – because he hasn’t faced a challenge in over a decade.  But he won’t give up by choice.  That isn’t human nature.

The game is incredibly fun – right up until someone wins.  Then, without a server reset, the game stagnates and everyone quits.

 

That's also what Fortuna previously said in his/her post.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Gries

[Epiquin]

To describe why l2j servers are failing from time to time i am going to quote an upcoming MMO article:

(probably some of you might have read this already)

 

That's also what Fortuna previously said in his/her post.

Crowfall.

 

I don't think their argument is entirely accurate. Persistent isn't bad. Persistent without loss is. EVE Online is a good example to it. Its up for more than a decade and there are no Uncle Bob Tyrants in EVE. Its because the whole game is heavily based on economy and loss. And hence victory conditions are not stipulated by entire removal of one force from the conflict. You might lose 100 ships, but if you kill a titan, thats something like 40bill loss and equates to many many more smaller ships.

 

Crowfall devs sound enthusiastic but I think they will fall into the same trap as other MMOs, because even with their world wipes, a pattern/trend will become apparent which will follow exactly what they describe they want to avoid, but on a much more frequent basis.

[Arcangel]

I find that the more "custom" ppl put in the less ppl stay. one of the best servers I ever played was Xeebra. A dynamic voting rate with crafting B grade. One of the biggest issues I came across in the years of playing was the constant "farming" of anything over level 65. With buffs the way they are and crazy enchanting It only takes a small group of 4 to take every raid in less than an hour and with them knowing the times and the times being offset to mine( usually at work) no one can catch up or get the raids. My only suggestion would be to make the epics instance based.

[BabayG]

First of all, when you want to play a game you expect a big company to develop it. Not a person with a team of 2 developers. Its just not possible, you cant trust these guys. The files are crapy,support and technical fixes too. Then you gonna say to me that there were legendary projects that stay alive for a very long time like pride,global,elixir,old bnb and elite . But these projects were made when the game was still flourishing ,its not possible to compare the past (5-6-7-8 years ago) and the present moment,as many players abandoned the game and some others play from time to time, while a small community still continue to play daily. However , mid and high rate servers kill the game as it was developed in order to process (lvl up slow,do quests,craft after a lot of farm,pvp,make friends and family, and fight with them against another clan or a grand boss) smoothly. And yes this is the beauty of this game,its a pain in the ass, but when you see the results that come up with your work it actually makes you happy. You can see thousands of bosses in hundrends of areas,which they are literally useless in high rates. In such kind of servers you can only pvp(camping at dv,loa,soa) ,which mainly happens at the lvl of 85 and in the same areas. How long can you stay in such servers,2-3 weeks? Its boring after a while. L2 community needs something new, i mean an innovation not a custom server cause people dont trust all these custom builds. Only a new sequel of l2 could save lineage community. So dont blame yourselves (admins) that you cant keep people in your servers. If you are greedy or scammers you just lose your servers community faster. Some people may appreciate your work and honor you by keep playing in your server ,but in the end even these few pll will leave so as to find something better.

Edited February 28, 2015 by JohnBoy13

[PaulVanDyke]

First of all, when you want to play a game you expect a big company to develop it. Not a person with a team of 2 developers. Its just not possible, you cant trust these guys. The files are crapy,support and technical fixes too. Then you gonna say to me that there were legendary projects that stay alive for a very long time like pride,global,elixir,old bnb and elite . But these projects were made when the game was still flourishing ,its not possible to compare the past (5-6-7-8 years ago) and the present moment,as many players abandoned the game and some others play from time to time, while a small community still continue to play daily. However , mid and high rate servers kill the game as it was developed in order to process (lvl up slow,do quests,craft after a lot of farm,pvp,make friends and family, and fight with them against another clan or a grand boss) smoothly. And yes this is the beauty of this game,its a pain in the ass, but when you see the results that come up with your work it actually makes you happy. You can see thousands of bosses in hundrends of areas,which they are literally useless in high rates. In such kind of servers you can only pvp(camping at dv,loa,soa) ,which mainly happens at the lvl of 85 and in the same areas. How long can you stay in such servers,2-3 weeks? Its boring after a while. L2 community needs something new, i mean an innovation not a custom server cause people dont trust all these custom builds. Only a new sequel of l2 could save lineage community. So dont blame yourselves (admins) that you cant keep people in your servers. If you are greedy or scammers you just lose your servers community faster. Some people may appreciate your work and honor you by keep playing in your server ,but in the end even these few pll will leave so as to find something better.

agree. +1

[Fortuna]

First of all, when you want to play a game you expect a big company to develop it. Not a person with a team of 2 developers. Its just not possible, you cant trust these guys. The files are crapy,support and technical fixes too. Then you gonna say to me that there were legendary projects that stay alive for a very long time like pride,global,elixir,old bnb and elite . But these projects were made when the game was still flourishing ,its not possible to compare the past (5-6-7-8 years ago) and the present moment,as many players abandoned the game and some others play from time to time, while a small community still continue to play daily. However , mid and high rate servers kill the game as it was developed in order to process (lvl up slow,do quests,craft after a lot of farm,pvp,make friends and family, and fight with them against another clan or a grand boss) smoothly. And yes this is the beauty of this game,its a pain in the ass, but when you see the results that come up with your work it actually makes you happy. You can see thousands of bosses in hundrends of areas,which they are literally useless in high rates. In such kind of servers you can only pvp(camping at dv,loa,soa) ,which mainly happens at the lvl of 85 and in the same areas. How long can you stay in such servers,2-3 weeks? Its boring after a while. L2 community needs something new, i mean an innovation not a custom server cause people dont trust all these custom builds. Only a new sequel of l2 could save lineage community. So dont blame yourselves (admins) that you cant keep people in your servers. If you are greedy or scammers you just lose your servers community faster. Some people may appreciate your work and honor you by keep playing in your server ,but in the end even these few pll will leave so as to find something better.

You shouldn't be looking at private servers if you're looking for something done professionally by a big company in the first place. However, NCWest is not a company to be trusted, honestly, if you're thinking of trying retail. I seriously believe that there are private servers owned by a small group of people that are more trustworthy than NC. It's just community that has lost interest and stopped growing. L2 miserably fails to compete against newer games, since it still holds a few mechanics that are currently seen as ridiculous flaws in a contemporary healthy game (extreme rng being the one that bothers me, personally, mostly)

[Pere]

I do share your point, there's very few stuff we can do with this game to keep it appealing for people. In our case (L2TnS/Tenkai), for example, we invest tons of time and resources in development, some on taking care of the community and absolutely 0 in advertisement.

 

But I don't think it's because of the so few advertisement that our server is not in its best days, but because the game as it and without the grinding content (we're HR servers) they become extremelly boring at the end, no matter how much effort we apply on adding our own endgame content and goals.

 

Let's not forget that nowadays the toxic players/community members are very common, and that helps a lot on spoiling the other players' experiences up to the point to make them quit.

 

But meh, it's been a long while since I stopped liking this game and just enjoying programming for it; that makes me blind about what people would like (and listening to the current playerbase is not helpful at all, they just ask for self advantage and/or easiness).

 

Maybe making a big "Let's design a server" post here would help, who knows... But imho this game is pretty dead. Enough to bring hundreds or even thousands of players to the few bigger servers, but that's by far much less than some years ago.

[KruMix]

Hello ,

My personal thinking  about what is the best for a server is :

 

*Frist of all should be the disscusion with players , with the server comunnity, Regarding the server futures

* another thing will be to add uninique things in server gameplay but not to make it to much customs 

* Take Care about comunnity needs speacking with them(i know those days to much ppls play l2 just for pvp and they forget the most important thing of l2 thats the sad thing)

* Avoid high rate servers this is a total unbalance of game i notice that on my own experience you will never achive the perfect balance

 

Thats all what was in my mind right now .

 

And Pleasee excuse my english 

Thake care

 

Ps : You will nerver achive to please all players  

Edited March 3, 2015 by Teddy

[Epiquin]

 

Let's not forget that nowadays the toxic players/community members are very common, and that helps a lot on spoiling the other players' experiences up to the point to make them quit.

 

 

Out of curiousity, what do you think is a toxic player?

 

Because a players that goes out and PvP people spontaneously even with the result ending in PK is just game mechanics that everyone should be prepared for. Whether the defendant is capable of fighting for himself or not is a flaw of gameplay design, not player toxicity.

 

You shouldn't be looking at private servers if you're looking for something done professionally by a big company in the first place. However, NCWest is not a company to be trusted, honestly, if you're thinking of trying retail. I seriously believe that there are private servers owned by a small group of people that are more trustworthy than NC. It's just community that has lost interest and stopped growing. L2 miserably fails to compete against newer games, since it still holds a few mechanics that are currently seen as ridiculous flaws in a contemporary healthy game (extreme rng being the one that bothers me, personally, mostly)

 

Agree completely.

 

I don't think it's a matter of whether big dev group/small dev group/company. At the end of the day, considering how old this game is we are all very quick to identify how much bullshit there is when examining a private server in previews or adverts. If no care was taken to reduce the fkn features list and its just a copy paste like some shit curriculum vitae from an intern applying to McDonalds its easy to see that no real work has been done.

 

And again agree on modernisation. L2 is still salvageable. But not without taking risks and doing something outlandishly different. Random() needs to die.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Epiquin

[Pere]

with toxic i never meant pks nor even bug exploiters. I meant people looking for social conflict, mainly flaming and/or abusing people who do care when insulted.

[Pere]

And I also share your opinions about the randomness of this game; it's omnipresent:

 

In combat: accuracy, evasion, critical rates, debuff land rates, damage formula (the little dmg variation), etc.

In game progression: monster drops, gear enhancements (enchant scrolls, augmenting, elementing, some talismans in GoD...), some quest rewards, etc.

 

How the hell could we remove all of this randomness without breaking the game? I have some ideas, but they're not optimal. It's all based on the final goal of the randomness: if something should happen only 1 time out of 10, simply make it happen in a 10 times lower amount... or make its trigger cause to happen 10 times more rarely. Let's see some examples:

 

- All mobs in official drop adena with a 70% chance. What for??? Why should a mob drop 100 adena 70% of the times it dies while it could drop 70 adena always? At the end, after a big bunch of hunted mobs, it's the same, but you avoid that 30% chance of frustration on each mob.

- All debuffs should ALWAYS land. And if some debuff is meant to have a 50% base land rate, it should have twice its reuse. Then you'd say "what about debuf resistances?"; they could exist as well, but instead of reducing their land rates they could reduce their durations! Yes, I'm aware of debuffs without duration like target removals, but they're rare.

- An item drops from 4 to 20 times. What about making it drop 16 (the aversge) times always instead?

- A rare item is dropped with a 1% chance. This case is harder to handle, but we could remove it from the mob and make a unique collectible of which you need 100 to get that item (and then make the mob drop one). Yeah, maybe too many collectibles, that's why I'd simply suggest to remove all these rare drops.

- If now at each new enchant level there's a chance that the item goes back to +0, at the end of the day it means that the price and rarity of each new enchantment increases exponentially. Why not making the cost of each new enchantment increase exponentially then, instead of punishing people with bad luck and making gifts to the ones with good luck?

- I can't think of an alternative to accuracy/evasion in a target-based game, so I guess it should stay as it is...

 

But the randomness sometimes is rewarding. How many of you haven't felt fulfilled after looting a rare item or having succeeded to over-overenchant something? How would you replace these so positive experiences?

 

Even though, I can't find a reason for the randomness in combat to exist in a so determinant way. This uses to lead to big frustrations during PvP, and the winner doesn't feel too good about having landed his debuffs; it's just a fight.

 

An that's only one of the horrible parts of this game, we're all aware of the senseless amount of content thrown to trash (everything under the top level) or about how unfair can become a server's status (clan monopolies, huge amount of boring work to reach the endgame...)

 

So what are your thoughts?

Edited March 4, 2015 by Pere

[G.A.M.E.R]

thing i like in L2 is sieges but the best server is server where are friends they will make me leave or stay  :)

[Epiquin]

And I also share your opinions about the randomness of this game; it's omnipresent:

 

In combat: accuracy, evasion, critical rates, debuff land rates, damage formula (the little dmg variation), etc.

In game progression: monster drops, gear enhancements (enchant scrolls, augmenting, elementing, some talismans in GoD...), some quest rewards, etc.

 

How the hell could we remove all of this randomness without breaking the game? I have some ideas, but they're not optimal. It's all based on the final goal of the randomness: if something should happen only 1 time out of 10, simply make it happen in a 10 times lower amount... or make its trigger cause to happen 10 times more rarely. Let's see some examples:

 

- All mobs in official drop adena with a 70% chance. What for??? Why should a mob drop 100 adena 70% of the times it dies while it could drop 70 adena always? At the end, after a big bunch of hunted mobs, it's the same, but you avoid that 30% chance of frustration on each mob.

- All debuffs should ALWAYS land. And if some debuff is meant to have a 50% base land rate, it should have twice its reuse. Then you'd say "what about debuf resistances?"; they could exist as well, but instead of reducing their land rates they could reduce their durations! Yes, I'm aware of debuffs without duration like target removals, but they're rare.

- An item drops from 4 to 20 times. What about making it drop 16 (the aversge) times always instead?

- A rare item is dropped with a 1% chance. This case is harder to handle, but we could remove it from the mob and make a unique collectible of which you need 100 to get that item (and then make the mob drop one). Yeah, maybe too many collectibles, that's why I'd simply suggest to remove all these rare drops.

- If now at each new enchant level there's a chance that the item goes back to +0, at the end of the day it means that the price and rarity of each new enchantment increases exponentially. Why not making the cost of each new enchantment increase exponentially then, instead of punishing people with bad luck and making gifts to the ones with good luck?

- I can't think of an alternative to accuracy/evasion in a target-based game, so I guess it should stay as it is...

 

But the randomness sometimes is rewarding. How many of you haven't felt fulfilled after looting a rare item or having succeeded to over-overenchant something? How would you replace these so positive experiences?

 

Even though, I can't find a reason for the randomness in combat to exist in a so determinant way. This uses to lead to big frustrations during PvP, and the winner doesn't feel too good about having landed his debuffs; it's just a fight.

 

An that's only one of the horrible parts of this game, we're all aware of the senseless amount of content thrown to trash (everything under the top level) or about how unfair can become a server's status (clan monopolies, huge amount of boring work to reach the endgame...)

 

So what are your thoughts?

Agree.

 

Some randomness could be permitted in rewards through farming. But think a more thorough investigation could reveal how to reduce it. If we start thinking about economy and reducing to finite resources, time taken to farm etc, we can start building models, or at least pictures of resource gain. I think this is what's trivialised and why there is a bad economy in a lot of servers.

 

Randomness in combat should be avoided. Desired effects should be achieved through deterministic methods and decisions. Typically majority of low chance debuffs are thrown in because there is a hole in the skill rotation. If the skill rotation is perfect (like in Glads/duelists), then there is no time to cast low priority skills.

But this has to be balanced with costs and durations. 

Currently the meta is to balance based on some average. But the average is not quantified, and everyone has their own opinion where the average is. Which is why there is a huge disagreement when it comes to balance.