Discussion Why Do You Think Servers Fail?

[HardCoreIV]

1) is because the main reason is that the simply open, only and only for donates. Those servers usually start with a conversation like "dude lets make a pvp server and get rich from donates!"

 

2) is because lineage now is an old games, most users just wanna log in play some pvp, experience the sieges and clans and all that in small amount of time, and then log out and come back when they have a boner again,

 

3) low rate or mid rate server fail most of the times because 2. People don't have time to commit, let alone to a server where they won't even be sure that it's gonna hold its self online for a month.

 

4) Donates. Most severs need to survive we get it, but sometimes it gets ridiculous. And free players don't appreciate that...

 

5) it's kinda impossible actually to not fail. Even the servers that are popular right now (2015) are failures.

 

(Personal opinion, don't h8 m8)

[Fortuna]

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.

Fair points. However, trying to remake L2 is a waste of an effort. People who still play it ACTIVELY, simply seem to enjoy its flavour. Others that have given up on this game, play other games which have adapted to modern requirements. Therefore it's highly unlikely to bring them back. Not many people would quit a game they enjoy for something that seems rather uncertain. In the end it'd still be a relatively bad game with a ton of improvements.

[Pere]

Fair points. However, trying to remake L2 is a waste of an effort. People who still play it ACTIVELY, simply seem to enjoy its flavour. Others that have given up on this game, play other games which have adapted to modern requirements. Therefore it's highly unlikely to bring them back. Not many people would quit a game they enjoy for something that seems rather uncertain. In the end it'd still be a relatively bad game with a ton of improvements.

Sadly, very true.

[phyphy]

uneven pvps.

Some Clan gets all the strong players with 100+ players. Then they crush all other clans and dont allow them to farm for equip. Then they get bored and leave the server. Then everyone leaves.

[Epiquin]

uneven pvps.

Some Clan gets all the strong players with 100+ players. Then they crush all other clans and dont allow them to farm for equip. Then they get bored and leave the server. Then everyone leaves.

Its a sandbox, nobody is obliged to hold someone elses hand and make strong groups for them.

 

The issue is not so much that some clan gets a lot of players.

 

it's the lack of tools that let you fight with few vs many.

[DinoF]

Everyone is right, people look at L2 as a business now instead of a hobby/game, I personally like to play PvP servers as I don't really have time to commit to a low rate due to work, but then if they made 2/3 castles siegable and only 1 clan in an alliance that would makes thing a lot interesting in my opinion, if there was a high population community.

 

What I don't understand is, how clans/players re-join a server that has wiped when they've worked weeks/months for their items and enchanting them, just why do you re-joins as the server has fucked you over?

 

I guess if NCSoft will ever release Lineage Eternal (Lineage 3) (wouldn't get my hopes up) would be the only way to save the Lineage 2 Community. That's my opinion anyway.