IDEAS FOR RYZOM

@Tumble-

Firstly: Actually no need to change the game code. The beauty of this idea means that the OP war system would be converted/written on the new ARK tools. If this idea came to pass and everyone loved it- can keep it. If not, just a simple matter of switching the OP script back to the original and no harm done at all.

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Secondly: Yes I quite understand that people could attack at inconvenient times. The thing about this game is that there are players on at different times. Firstly- lets not forget you need a roundcount of ~14. This means having around about 2 teams I would say for a q250. Now I am just going to logic this out based on this time and my friends list which has about an even number of kara kami and a fair amount of maros. There are actually an even number of all online. So for people to launch a successful attack a decent handful of people are going to have to stay up late. So yes, some people may do this once, twice or even three times at a stretch- but the point is- if its generally inconvenient to defend at that time- it will be inconvenient to attack at that time. People will get fed up of staying up until 5 in the morning just to win an OP.

I understand the timing is an issue but I do not think it is a big one. This however, could be overcome by certain additional options. What if for example, the owners of the OP can choose 8 hours in which they can be attacked? I would be interested to see what you think on that.

I believe the permanent double xp was in response to a large body of unsubbed players- giving a big incentive to sub up. It would be logically what you say to bring them back- personally the thought of having to carry around cats again makes me want to throw up.

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@bittty-

I love the idea of making an occupation kinda thing to raise the quality of OP mats- such a thing would be simple enough to make. 6 q50 is very low though and remember people will have stockpiles and stockpiles of q50 and q100 mats.

little off topic but i didn't know there was a Q50 rubbarn OP. (or armilo).

however, there's always the idea of making ALL OP's produce Q250 mat's since you can make lower level items from the higher level mat's but not the other way around.

there's also the idea virg doesn't want me to speak about: a merchant that sells the OP mat's.
which would then make OP's a more pvp only thing. guilds that wanted to put in the pvp effort to control the OP's could do so, and others that normally don't PVP would have an alternative way to get the mats then being more-less forced to do without or try to get mat's via doing pvp at the wars to in hopes get a mat from the side they helped (if they win, that is). (fear not virg i'm not trying to derail your thread, i'm offering options and making points that are in favor of your basic idea: making OP's more fun for the players that like pvp. i'm simply trying to offer a way to help everyone, the pvp and pve community's alike.

there are some mat's that OP's make that are limited to only the highest blocks (vidice only comes in Q200 and Q250, thus there's nothing like that for lower level players without "wasting" a high level OP mat, which as an OP owner would maybe be ok, but for those that don't own the OP that "expensive" mat would be wasted to make say a Q150 item)

i also like bittty's idea of using more of the lower level mat's to "upgrade" the mat to a higher Q as that would make the lower level op's worth something again. (eg. 6 Q50 = 1 Q250)

this is one of those ideas that will have many possible options, some may not like the basic idea i promote (merchants) but this option works in favor of all play styles and it's hard to argue that it's not a fair option for all, because the OP's become more what they were intended to be: a PVP item. (the items made with the mat's from op's are good for pve players just as much as pvp players, so why is it that everyone's stuck on the idea they're only for pvp players?)

anyway i'll close saying that there is room for improvement in OP's in general but that because there are so many different play styles in ryzom it's hard to have any single change make it "better".

Talk -- I *know* there's a q50 armilo because I owned it before the merge. It comes from the Psykopla Knoll OP to be precise. You're right about the rubbarn; just 200 and 250. Greslin goes 100 to 250 and egiros 200, 250.

So, of the four tool mats only armilo really needs a path to higher quality.

Virg -- I wasn't thinking of a pseudo-occupation, but given what we've seen of uses of ARK, it ought to be simple and could be made to take any number of qxxx to make qyyy. My suggestion of 6:1 was based on an idea of the steady state not the immediate rush, and I think it's not unreasonable.

Tumbleweed, I think the main reason to remove the 2nd phase of OPs is not because counter declares are annoying and occur at unfair times, but rather to make OP wars more dynamic and frequent and to make OPs change hands more often.

At TH12 or so a smaller force could win an OP but it'd still require considerable manpower and strategy. And when planning an OP war you don't need to take 2 nights out of your busy week to make it happen, just 1.

About the unfairness of the attacker being the one to choose the time, there's tweaks for that. I like Virg's suggestion of the owners setting a "timeframe" of 8 hours in which they can be attacked. And the 24 hours declare can be stretched to 48h for example to give more time to prepare a defense.

As for the "useless" OPs, I really dislike the idea of bringing cats back. I think the rewards for OP pvp should be something unique and enticing, but nothing that completely shifts the balance of the gameplay. OP mats are great rewards, but not essential enough that folks can't go without them. The difference between "normal xp" and "double xp", on the other hand, is just too huge and too fundamental to the game experience to link it with OP pvp like this. I don't think it'd be fair to non-pvp players. I never liked the idea of cats and was very happy when they were removed (plus it works as a great incentive for people to sub).

I prefer the idea of converting a quantity of smaller quality OP mats into a higher quality mat. Although I think 6 q50 into 1 q250 would be too easy. I'd probably make it harder than that. Or alternatively, all OPs could have a % chance to yield a q250 mat. The smaller the OP level, the smaller the %.