Changelog 01/04/2016

[Celis Langmaid]

Your cries are in vein, and I laugh at you. Please, continue to keep me entertained.

[Henry]

This is exactly what this game has needed for a long time. Now, for this to make much difference, leave it like this for 3 years. Allow the population count to gradually rise. Then switch it back to full harsh, and watch most of the would-be quitters hang on for dear life (rather than quit)! The outcome: more players.

At the doctor's office, a parent has to endure the cries of his children as soon as they are told they are getting a shot. "Yes but it only hurts a little", isn't good enough - those kids cry bloody murder. Same here.

As for 3-year timing, think of the population count as grass growing in a horse pasture. It's not just the acreage of grass - it's also about the length of the grass. In order to support the full herd of horses there, the farmer has to tank the expense of buying feed for the horses, and keeping them elsewhere. His pasture must grow up first. Then the horses can be brought back and the farm can support them all. That takes time, and there's a period of "tough times" before it gets better.

What we have however, is a case where the horses ate all the grass down to the nubs. Now even more hungry, the remaining horses too eagerly eat whatever grass they can find, oblivious that they are destroying their own system, that could otherwise be sustainable.

(Too many servers splitting the population is the other primary factor in lower numbers, but gets mis-perceived as the only primary factor because it's more obvious. Look deeper.)

Another analogy is the party. This game is like a big house party. Kilgore is the host, and thus also the bouncer. Some guys get kicked out, but if you really want to clean up a party you have to get rid of all the riff-raff. All of it. Decent guys don't stay long at a party with too many jackasses. So let the jackasses complain and leave. I'd rather take a population hit now, and gradually recover to a higher quality of party-goers.

[Karlor]

This is exactly what this game has needed for a long time. Now, for this to make much difference, leave it like this for 3 years. Allow the population count to gradually rise. Then switch it back to full harsh, and watch most of the would-be quitters hang on for dear life (rather than quit)! The outcome: more players.

At the doctor's office, a parent has to endure the cries of his children as soon as they are told they are getting a shot. "Yes but it only hurts a little", isn't good enough - those kids cry bloody murder. Same here.

As for 3-year timing, think of the population count as grass growing in a horse pasture. It's not just the acreage of grass - it's also about the length of the grass. In order to support the full herd of horses there, the farmer has to tank the expense of buying feed for the horses, and keeping them elsewhere. His pasture must grow up first. Then the horses can be brought back and the farm can support them all. That takes time, and there's a period of "tough times" before it gets better.

What we have however, is a case where the horses ate all the grass down to the nubs. Now even more hungry, the remaining horses too eagerly eat whatever grass they can find, oblivious that they are destroying their own system, that could otherwise be sustainable.

(Too many servers splitting the population is the other primary factor in lower numbers, but gets mis-perceived as the only primary factor because it's more obvious. Look deeper.)

Another analogy is the party. This game is like a big house party. Kilgore is the host, and thus also the bouncer. Some guys get kicked out, but if you really want to clean up a party you have to get rid of all the riff-raff. All of it. Decent guys don't stay long at a party with too many jackasses. So let the jackasses complain and leave. I'd rather take a population hit now, and gradually recover to a higher quality of party-goers.

10/10 much analogies, very wow

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

[2238mudcrab]

bla

Why offer something that 9999 other MMOs already offer? DayZ also offers hardcore open PvP and it sold over 2 million copies.

[Shamessa]

this is bad update if it's true. But it's not - no respectfull admin would Put such update as a serious thing without even noticing players ealier about such breaking change, becuase it's not fair for old players (which is like 95% of population).

1. Giving such update 45 minutes pre April Fools Day hinted it's for of event.
2. People treated this as such, thus used a lot of items they would never used.
3. Also, very rare and hyper expansive loot was lost because of game mechanics that allow player to lose Combat Armor and Power Armor desintegrated in the same way, by violent death. This is totally unfair.
4. Weapons, which are rare aswell, can explode - and I think Noolooted noob is much happier to lose M60 then experienced player losing Bozar or YK32 or Gauss...
5. Giving No-loot rule in middle of session is rather stupid.

Knowing that - and I believe admins are not that stupid (unless I am wrong) - means there will be wipe - why admins don't say about exact time of wipe, with ealier notification? Because they know players will lose interest of playing Reloaded and, either: they will go for another server or just stop playing FOnline.

Seeing how number of players dropped since update (not counting 1st of April), it shows pretty much they dislike bad decissions - now I wonder, how many of them will just rage on Reloaded if there is nothing safe to have here...

[Celis Langmaid]

Why offer something that 9999 other MMOs already offer? DayZ also offers hardcore open PvP and it sold over 2 million copies.

Then go play DayZ. It will give you something to do other than complaining here.

this is bad update if it's true. But it's not - no respectfull admin would Put such update as a serious thing without even noticing players ealier about such breaking change, becuase it's not fair for old players (which is like 95% of population).

1. Giving such update 45 minutes pre April Fools Day hinted it's for of event.
2. People treated this as such, thus used a lot of items they would never used.
3. Also, very rare and hyper expansive loot was lost because of game mechanics that allow player to lose Combat Armor and Power Armor desintegrated in the same way, by violent death. This is totally unfair.
4. Weapons, which are rare aswell, can explode - and I think Noolooted noob is much happier to lose M60 then experienced player losing Bozar or YK32 or Gauss...
5. Giving No-loot rule in middle of session is rather stupid.

Knowing that - and I believe admins are not that stupid (unless I am wrong) - means there will be wipe - why admins don't say about exact time of wipe, with ealier notification? Because they know players will lose interest of playing Reloaded and, either: they will go for another server or just stop playing FOnline.

Seeing how number of players dropped since update (not counting 1st of April), it shows pretty much they dislike bad decissions - now I wonder, how many of them will just rage on Reloaded if there is nothing safe to have here...

I'm sorry, but apparently you weren't in Hub when the last few people to insult Kilgore were banned. Maybe everyone should stop and think for a moment here that insulting the administration over an administrative decision is a bad idea altogether? And it just further adds to the problem of people being assholes in the first place. Markus was right, if this serves to weed out the worse of the players who only played this game to make other players lives a living hell by constantly killing and looting them, then so be it. Bye. We didn't want you here anyway. Go play FO2 if this is such a big hit to your ego.

For the rest saying that their first experience here wasn't that bad, I'd like to remind everyone that experience differs from person to person. I for one had a pleasant first experience and met some very friendly people, most of which are no longer around. Newer players, I admit, most aren't very smart when it comes to builds. And let's face it, this game is somewhat difficult to understand for some people. Hell, some of my friends, I've had to constantly explain controls to until they finally got the hang of it. And admittedly, most players want to play the build they want to play, not be forced into a build archtype that so much of the veteran players go to for combat builds. And being ambushed by those veteran players puts them in a bad position, to the point where some players just give up and stop playing. And most factions, like the Khans or Ultra Violence, or Muhosr-whatever the hell it is, they taunt and tease and gloat and just all out make other players feel unwelcome. And that shouldn't be the case. Other players shouldn't make new players feel so unwelcome that they stop coming on, thats not how a game builds a reputable playerbase. Hopefully this update drives those kinds of people away.

And I won't lie. This could be temp, this could be perm. But consider this first.

FACT: This update was released on April 1st, Polish time. For my time, and most of America, that was March 31st.

FACT: When this update was released, PvP was enabled in all protected towns.

FACT: One day after the release of the update, PvP was redisabled in protected towns. The update, however, remained intact. This leads me to believe this may be permanent.

FACT: It is, as of posting this, 4-5 days after the update. It remains intact, despite protests from the veteran players.

FACT: And I can provide the logs to prove this if requested, Kilgore has been banning people in-game who comes to Hub and insults him over this new update. He has also gone on record saying that there is no planned wipe as of yet, and that when there is, there will be a public announcement.


Yes, the wasteland is harsh, and yes not everyone is going to be friendly. But when a playerbase falls due to veteran players not treating new players, or anyone for that matter, with proper respect, and outright forcing other players to join their faction, and don't lie to me, it IS forcing when you pretty much say "Join this faction, and if you don't, you're our enemy and we'll kill you in sight.", then it's a sure sign that things need to change. And this change is for the better.

[Kilgore]

The update is obviously an experiment. The change is of course controversial and harsh reactions of more desperate part of community were expected. Initially it was planned to take 24 hours but it's too short to gather enough feedback and positive/negative results.

Both systems (loot / noloot) have their advantages and disadvantages, however this is something that was never tried in any large FOnline game AFAIK.
In loot system, players suffer a serious penalty for dying unless they carry nothing - then they lose nothing besides 60s for respawn.
In no-loot system in current form, there is no penalty for dying for anyone.
However, I'm not a fan of no penalty for dying - but I believe that different solutions are possible.
Of course it is obvious that if such change would stay, then (many) other changes would have to follow.

I understand that few players who took their precious power armors out of their tents and got them destroyed might be angry, but it's only your fault - you made an assumption that there will be a rollback, possibly because of rumors spread by various people. But there was no rollback planned. Don't listen to rumors.

I'm waiting for more constructive posts/discussion. If you are about to post "rollback please" then don't bother as it will be moved here.

[triqua]

The current situation somehow reminds me of the bluesuits in the previous session, that were trying to loot reno locker 24/7. The problem is not only about the victim that got killed. It is also a problem for the killer who might had have an intense fight to be the winner.. but in the end he doesn't get any reward. It is the most satisfying thing in pvp to knee down after the fight and search the inventory of the victim(s) for precious rewards. In the last session i had nearly every kind of stuff but still i enjoyed to loot after hard fights.
I also see a risk of more trolls incoming. If people cant be looted they use more rare stuff, so i see more trolls using jinx so these guys lose it. But nevertheless the current situation leads to a bigger disbalance between poor and rich players.

The point has been mentioned that there are always more pve than pvp players. But it also takes the thrill while pve'ing. You don't need to improve your strategies because you don't get punished hard enough for your own failures.

just a few thoughts

Edit: another idea where i don't even know what to think about by myself but it is nice for the discussion:  Make an option in fonline configurator or a command (i.e. ~lootmode on/off). When turned off you can't loot other players and also can't be looted by other players. If it is turned on it is like before the update but you cannot loot others players who have turned the option lootmode for themselves off. so it would be somehow solved clientside... i don't like the idea by myself but maybe someone else can make a good suggestion out of this crap

[OldBoy]

But nevertheless the current situation leads to a bigger disbalance between poor and rich players.

No. Poor players has now a better chance to get rich. Rich players are rich already so that feature dont impact on them to much IMO.

[Shamessa]

Kilgore - I posted ealier, I liked this change as a fun and experimental part of the game. I, for one, enjoyed all tests. For longer run I find it no good. Why?

Some people use game mechanics and its world just to make other people raging. Well, Fallout Online is that type of game, where you can not save, and you could not make mistake, becuase you would suffer losses. I loved this.

And no loot mechanics, imo, will never prevent newcomers, newbies from losing or even not make their progress better. Why? Because there would be need to make almost every zone Non-PvP, because its easy to just protect those places in order to STOP newcomers and blusits to get any adventage, for example: GR quest, Advanced Workbech - so, if there is no loss in wasteland, those players - who actually do RPG by killing newcomers - will transfer their actions in places they will DO HARM to player, and prohibniting acces for caravans (which is easy to block with current laws), GR quest, Advanced Workbench ect is just next step in terms of Westland World in FOnline.

Triqua pointed it well, I mean I think the same - looting system is rewardous for me. It's a fact i lose 70% gear then I get from players, but I am into PvP like 3 weeks now.

Lets see some facts:

Spoiler: show

This my WH tent, which I use in order to do intense pvp fights. I share this tent with 2 players. If we have heavy fights, we lose around 30-40* CA sets each evening, and around 100-150 SS and some ammo. Now, players who win versous me, have a gain - I accept that, because I am getting involved into most dangerous place up there - with best possible reward (if lucky). I still can use 1-2 sets for few weeks doing Caravans and other PVM activities. Now, tell me, Celis Langmaid, how newcomers are suppose to even try this Top Tier PvP/PVE area? They just don't so losing equippement doesn't bother them as much. I never had problems, since start with equippement in PVM, however, PvP (I got killed manyyyy times in few first day by player hunters), I lost all I had many times - which, turns out, was rather my fault then game mechanics - I just should not try so hard to "get things done".

Secondly, losse all-gain all feature of Fallout World, including FOnline: Reloaded, it very unique system that attracts most players (95%) but many of them just fail on the second part of this system and don't like this, and they quit. Now, whos fault is this?


*-  if we meet some heavy PvP players.

[Troll]

Another idea where i don't even know what to think about by myself but it is nice for the discussion:  Make an option in fonline configurator or a command (i.e. ~lootmode on/off). When turned off you can't loot other players and also can't be looted by other players. If it is turned on it is like before the update but you cannot loot others players who have turned the option lootmode for themselves off. so it would be somehow solved clientside... i don't like the idea by myself but maybe someone else can make a good suggestion out of this crap

   That's an idea, not working like that because of the obvious "in combat switch" but it deserves to be digged. The no loot thing may seem nice, it has two unpleasant side effects:
-You do not need to survive a dungeon to get out with the loot
-It's a nerf for cripplers, and I think the fucking 30 DR to target you suffer from finesse is more than enough.
    Normaly, when you weapon drop a player he has to grab his weapon and equip it, wich is 6 AP. Sometimes he didn't notice he lost it and starts to run, then have to run back and grab it. Now he can just equip for 3 AP and don't suffer any penalty from running away since he carry his weapon with him. Also the crippler tactic where you neutralize someone by taking the weapon he dropped is no longer possible. At the end, it's a big nerf. This could be partially solved by adding a AP drain for a succesfull weapon drop, that would act like a "lost next turn" crit miss in case the player was out of AP, but with 3 AP instead of all. But then we have the problem that weapon drop will make characters freeze sometimes, wich doesn't make any sense...
Another approach would be to double the AP cost for equipping weapons, 6 AP instead of 3 AP, and 5 AP characters would suffer a negative AP (short freeze) from equipping weapons. This could do it, also making quick pockets ( a perk I seem to be the only one to use here) an even more valuable perk (now you equip a weapon for 1 AP instead of 3, it would then be 2 instead of 6). And it also makes more sense, taking a weapon out of a backpack takes more time than aiming down and shooting. But on the other hand we create a small nerf for LSW/SNiper rifle sneakers, who will now have to wait longer for their AP after equipping a weapon before they can attack.

And now about that command triqua suggested. I want to say why not, but it cannot work with a simple command you can type before you get rushed and killed. Something like a cooldown needs to be added, or ppl will just switch whenever they see fit. Also a player using very good gear will just diseable looting, since he now he'll only get crap on the enemy players. But then why not, if you want to gamble, you need to put a bet right? I you know enemy will come with broken unstatted gear, you block looting, if you think you may get something interesting you put your own at risk. Also, in situations where you know from start you are completely outnumbered but still want to fight, you can without doing a gear donation, this could lead to more pvp and more new players trying pvp. The command could trigger a cooldown (30 minutes?, I don't know) preventing you from typing the command again. That comand would also only be usable from the worldmap, not after spawning on a map.

I'm tossing ideas around and pointing out obvious problems, not everything I said should be taken as a finished suggestion, but rather discussion topics, that's why all the update is for.

[zekromo]

Taking away the loot system - a simple but basic backbone of reloaded that has been here since its predecessor 2238 - hurts the gameplay for both old players and new players. What attracted new players? Reloaded for what it was, and taking this away just damages the name of Reloaded so much. Celis Langmaid, Markus Dex and any others who are interested in this new change and are in full support of it: that is good of you but to be honest your arguments are weak against those who KNOW what Reloaded was before this update. Let me explain it like this:

New players/Bluesuits
Everyone starts off as one of these. I remember starting off fresh off the bat a couple months ago. I had NO idea of the game, basing my gameplay with only that which was found on the Reloaded wiki. It was a fun experience, doing the quests, doing the little Player versus Enemy things etc. Now I want to say this because this is for almost EVERY new player who plays the game: if they get killed they want to just abandon the game because they feel like they have just lost everything. I am saying this because that is how I felt. What is important to note is it is not ONLY death from other players, but also from anything else in this game, like the effect of poison, radiation - or in my case - getting killed by brahmins around Modoc following the wiki.

At that point I really wanted to just uninstall reloaded for that reason. But I didnt. Want to know why?
Because this game kept me interested. It kept me on my toes. From that day it made me who I am on this game right now. Players who quit after their first death are clearly not interested in the game and probably just view it as a post apocalyptic runescape or something.

Now, onto the broken game mechanics that can stem from this. The no loot option can give new opportunities of just "dicking" around and annoying the game for new comers even more than getting killed and looted. Here are many examples and what happened previously:

Players can start camping advanced workbenches in unguarded towns and kill anyone who comes to use them without fear of losing their gear. They can be wearing power armor, wield t4 weapons, etc. Sure they get killed by the militia, but they dont lose gear do they? Also what if it was the faction that held that town?

Dungeons like Glow and Ares. They were a challenge to do and awesome fun to be had. It kept players on their toes going to these locations with the high expectation of reward but also a serious loss if they died. It was fun doing scavenger runs when we died to pick up anything we could on the way to getting our armor. Now what? That age is gone because you can decide to die and keep all the loot that you have had. Is this Reloaded? It is not. It is not how I remember or enjoyed reloaded.

Players can now attack caravans more often because they have no fear about the repercussions. This can easily be abused as more and more people can start doing it and ruin the fun for "new" and "old" players from gaining experience. It will ruin another core backbone of the Fonline series - caravans.

There are many more, and you can have your own views on it, Celis. A defense mechanism of saying that older players should not do that wont do anything because of this update being so easily abused. New players who withstand this easy b/s will probably do the same after realising how old it can get really fast and really quick.

[Bison]

The update is obviously an experiment. The change is of course controversial and harsh reactions of more desperate part of community were expected. Initially it was planned to take 24 hours but it's too short to gather enough feedback and positive/negative results.

Both systems (loot / noloot) have their advantages and disadvantages, however this is something that was never tried in any large FOnline game AFAIK.
In loot system, players suffer a serious penalty for dying unless they carry nothing - then they lose nothing besides 60s for respawn.
In no-loot system in current form, there is no penalty for dying for anyone.
However, I'm not a fan of no penalty for dying - but I believe that different solutions are possible.
Of course it is obvious that if such change would stay, then (many) other changes would have to follow.

I understand that few players who took their precious power armors out of their tents and got them destroyed might be angry, but it's only your fault - you made an assumption that there will be a rollback, possibly because of rumors spread by various people. But there was no rollback planned. Don't listen to rumors.

I'm waiting for more constructive posts/discussion. If you are about to post "rollback please" then don't bother as it will be moved here.

I hope you read my feedback about implementing this feature in a specific area or zones primarely for new players around hub or at San Francisco making an additional PVP hot spot. That way you have the best of both worlds, you protect newer players until they venture out of the "safe zone" and you allow those that like to loot and gain from the death of there enemies. You also push those that actually want to fight with there T4 but are to scared that they'll loose it.

Alternatively you could just have this feature available in some places like Reno, WH and Glow.

However you do it I would just like to state that the feature has it's perks and negatives so that's why I think it should be only active in specific areas. 

One thing that's certain is that this feature shouldn't be active in town control but again that's my opinion and I hope you take in this feedback. 

[Troll]

Players can start camping advanced workbenches in unguarded towns and kill anyone who comes to use them without fear of losing their gear. They can be wearing power armor, wield t4 weapons, etc. Sure they get killed by the militia, but they dont lose gear do they? Also what if it was the faction that held that town?

You started only recently, but I remember a time where "going to the workbench" was a precisely organised and timed operation, because BBS players were camping those with an autoclicker mule and a follower leader/tank pvp character, and since they always had all town, you had to deal with the militia too. Also, camping workbenches just to kill ppl you won't loot is ultra boring. The wasteland now is rather peacefull, you don't get killed by p90 sneakers in mines, militia don't attack you on sight if someone punches you, you no longer randomly drop in the middle of a TB trap if you don't want to. Mines are no longer camped by pvp factions killing everyone on sight, caravan leaders don't kill you if you hit them once and so on... A little bit more "mean to noobs" activities won't hurt much.

Dungeons like Glow and Ares. They were a challenge to do and awesome fun to be had. It kept players on their toes going to these locations with the high expectation of reward but also a serious loss if they died. It was fun doing scavenger runs when we died to pick up anything we could on the way to getting our armor. Now what? That age is gone because you can decide to die and keep all the loot that you have had. Is this Reloaded? It is not. It is not how I remember or enjoyed reloaded.

Yeah, I can only agree with that.

[Koniko]

Well the event made pvp more alive and surely is the best update in reloaded time line. If there's a plan to keep this system either make it so u can loot everything apart from equipped armor and weapon or enable full loot just in dungeons only for those who like risk and daily dose of adrenaline.

Keep it up and don't rollback. Just wipe.