Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

On death penalty

Tomorrow some really nasty post will come, don't miss it!

There are several people in the guild who disagree with the gankscore system where every death costs 20 kills. They claim that it is against our goal to "defeat" the horde as we can not engage into serious fights, must pick our fights too carefully, practically rendering ourselves inactive.

I completely disagree with that for two reasons: at first to defeat socials we must understand that death is "bad luck lol" for him, while kill is the unquestionable proof of skill on his part. If you kill him 5 times and he manage to kill you once, he won't feel defeated at all. He will think that you were lucky with crits some times and was "unhonorable" by jumping on him, but finally his l33t skillz prevailed. Even worse if he calls a friend to fight back you enforce social beliefs: "While I was defeated, we won"!

The only solution is to deny them kills. It's not easy. I don't think it's possible alone, no matter how geared and skilled you are. However there is absolutely no reason to do so. Open guild interface, whisper on the fellow lvl 80-es to do something together. Maybe it's a BG, maybe it's a HC for gear, but it can be some WG tower camping or hunting for JC daily questers or farmers or whatever. You can be really evil, if there are stealthers in the group. They stay stealthed when the kill is sure, and when the guy's friend arrives, some rogues pop out of nowhere to gank them.

There is a "social" experiment in the project: I want to prove that "being social" is not needed for cooperation. Only a common interest and a brain is needed. I want to create a shining example that defeats the common social belief: "being friendly social is the only way mankind can function". I want to prove that the social's utopia where "everyone helps the other" can be achieved exactly without social behavior: everyone needs the other, so they cooperate ("help" in social terms).

The lack of death penalty is artificial and unnatural. In real life if you don't eat, don't have a warm place in wintertime or get ill and not cured, you die. Failing to cooperate with the others ultimately leads to death. In the game its completely removed, your actions have no negative consequence, so you need nobody.


The second reason for death penalty is counter-intuitive. We don't want to fail. We avoid failure for its own. Death penalty in a game just add annoyance to failure. Why should the player be penalized for something that is penalty itself? When you wipe on a farm-raidboss, I'm sure your "damnit" feeling comes from the fact you failed and not from the annoyance of the corpserun-rebuff. Death penalty just make failures more painful and drive people away from trying out new (naturally risky) ways.

To understand why death penalty is still needed, I have to remind you that the M&S never fails. He just has "bad luck lol". You have knowledge, therefore control over success and failure, so over the death penalty. If I die to a warlock, it's not "damn, he was lucky with chaos bolt crit while feared", it's "I failed to put tremor and grounding totem or wind shear his cast". You know how to improve, how to avoid death penalty.

While death penalty is still an annoyance to you, it has a devastating effect to the M&S. In his belief he is at the mercy of luck for getting or not a huge penalty. Imagine a world where every hour a coin is flipped and you are slapped in the face by a huge guy if the coin lands on head. That's how the M&S feels about death penalty! Dieing to a fire patch or cleave is just as random as a coin flip for him.

Death penalty is not fun. But having M&S around is even less fun. It's another wall we have to build to defend ourselves from the sea of mindless retards.


If you want to prove both that death penalty is defeatable and also that cooperation does not need "being nice freindly peep", join. You can start new alt or transfer to the hell where 30-40 people are online in the whole faction on prime time and people are honestly surprised when we win a BG. Show the naysayers that nothing is impossible!


Note to retards: this post is about the MMO term meaning "if your char die, you lose something of value" and not about IRL capital punishment.

24 comments:

Bobbins said...

Bring back Hardcore Diablo II.
That was a death penalty. (and alot of mega griefing

You die = Goodbye character

This 'penalty' is nothing if your group is social then shame should mean something but as your not it doesn't. What penalty is there?

Do you kick people from the guild? If so tell them now. Will you publish a shame list worst players ever? What is the gankscore for?

If a character doesn't PVP will his score be higher than someone who doesn't? 0 as opposed to a minus score.

Dun said...

"If you kill him 5 times and he manage to kill you once, he won't feel defeated at all. He will think that you were lucky with crits... "

agree 1000%... look at all those "lf duels - 500g bet" or whatever...
if you kill them they will not pay but complain about you cheating ;)

Anonymous said...

Outnumbered 10 to 1 and you are penalized 20 hk's for 1 death - sounds fair to me - where do I sign?

Kaaterina said...

"Only common interest and brain is needed."

Why do you call your girlfriend, "girlfriend" and not "sex partner"? I'm sure you both have brains and you both cooperate in your interactions but, as you should know, the ape subroutine that causes the necessity of sex causes much more satisfaction if, besides cooperation, your brain is also computing a lot of social behavior.

That's Love 101 and if you don't know it go and have sex with a pie.

It's obvious and already proven that social interactions are not needed but they help and improve the results. Besides, how would you prove something like this in a game?

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: that's M&S reasoning. The truth is "you walked into a trap because you were careless"

@Kaaterina: simple, because my GF is not just sex partner but gaming partner, car fixing partner, homecleaning partner, shopping partner, thinking partner...

I disagree that social interaction improves cooperation. I think it allows leeches in, therefore decrease its productivity. The proof in a game is an anti-social guild where no social interaction is encouraged and some (lol = expressing positive emotions) are forbidden.

Tobold said...

Gevlon, the leadership of this project seems even worse than the Undergeared project. "Go and do something" seems like a poor reason to be in a guild. You should have planned attacks, planned activities and missions distributed to groups. Your death penalty will only make things worse, since social interactions are also absent. Why would anyone cooperate if the danger and cost of failing is high and you have no purpose besides "go and do something"?

But if they disagree they should leave. Being in a guild when you don't have to while disagreeing with the rules seems "forced cooperation", which is social behavior.

Gevlon said...

@Inquisitor: I'm fully aware of the situation you mentioned. However the Undergeared project was just a twist (blue gear) away from the standard raiding path.

This is completely new (WoW is not built for impact PvP) and I'm not ashamed or afraid to say that I'm just as lost as the others. The strategy is being formulated with constant discussion of the others. We will figure the goals out.

It is possible that the death penalty changes some way.

We are already doing lot of group activity (since a non-premade alliance in BG is 99% lost). We have a badge-farm raid scheduled.

Vrye said...

I don't think a project like this would really benefit from having just one leader. Having a leader to push the rest of the guild to accomplish what they came to the guild for is absurd: they should be accomplishing it themselves. Who comes to a project with such a harsh penalty without actually WANTING to go out and overcome it by themselves?

Zazkadin said...

"Having a leader to push the rest of the guild to accomplish what they came to the guild for is absurd: they should be accomplishing it themselves."

That's true to every guild. The fact is that a leader is always necessary. Even goblins need a leader. For example, if Gevlon doesn't show up for the Saturday raids, no one does anything.

strutt@kil' jaeden said...

I think we (readers) should make an anti Ganking guild on same server.

With the sole purpouse of the project to see if the social M&S can beat the "non socials".

Everything in the Guilde would be oppisite as yours Gev, coordinated attacks, no death penalty, you can "lolwtfbbq" if you want.
would be interesting to see how you would fair.

See

Sjonnar said...

I still don't think you're going to have the effect you think you will. If your gankers run around in groups, pouncing on singles (or smaller groups) and crushing them every time, instead of 'bad luck lol', the M&S will just say 'got gangraped by alli >_<' no 'lol'; they'll be angry, but that's all they'll be. you won't pierce their assurance that their failure stems from circumstances beyond their control.

maybe you should schedule raids, just like in a raiding guild, only instead of raiding ICC, you raid org or UC. your goal would be to lock the city down completely: kill all NPC's, denying even unflagged hordies access to bankers, auctioneers, battlemasters, trainers, vendors, etc. maybe even suspend death penalty for those raids. Then see how long you can hold the city.

Granted, it will take a bunch of a lot of people, but that's what the guild calendar's for.

Another option is to find out the most common raid times for top horde guilds, and choke off access to ICC during those times. Keep WG under your control and lock them out of VOA while you're at it. you might even get some new recruits as grateful alliance seek to keep control of WG more often

Anonymous said...

@Zankadin:
You don't always need a leader. If all members of a team are in an equal, high, intelligence standard, authority is absurd. They will know what they have to do and what not.

Bobbins said...

@Strutt

True. Everyone on this blog seems to disagree with what Gevlon says. And everyone who agrees is on his guild and never comments here. Weird.

Anonymous said...

What Sjonnar said is absolutely correct "you won't pierce their assurance that their failure stems from circumstances beyond their control."

Just about the only people it affects is 12 year olds... so whole really cares.

Quicksilver said...

@Gevlon

You state, and have continually stated that these projects will send a message.

This is where I fail to understand. The hordes of M&S and socials dont read this blog. They dont look into the game looking after additional resources. Those who do, already know that what you are trying to prove is doable.

If someone links them to your site, most of them wont even read the post. Those who read will just rationalize their opinion.

Socials the same.

The main attribute of an M&S is the fact that he is unwilling to learn. That his dumbness is completely impenetrable.

The socials won't be convinced otherwise even if shown examples. They have rationalized things harder to rationalize than this.

Think about it:
News: "some guild cleared ICC in blues while playing 3hours/week".
Social:
answer a) I dont believe it it's a lie (as he cant understand the wow-logs)
answer b) lol those guys are hardocore no lifer raiders into another guild, ofc they did it.
M&S:
generic answer: lol

So I dont know... it doesnt seem to me that any of these projects will ever manage to prove something to anyone who didnt know it before. So that's why imposing a silly death penalty seems to me like over stretching it.

What would be more interesting for everyone following this, is a special pvp achievement (not wow achievement lol) that nobody has done before.

Kinda like Angwe, the rogue who got ppl hating him. I doubt he had a scoring rule to compute his efficiency. He didnt have one because it wasnt needed. He only concentrated on the outcome of his message which he got through pretty thoroughly, w/o any silly score.

Good large scale pvp achievements could be:
- Reach 20 (or any other number) of horde whine threads on Magteridon
forums
- Make horde unable to do ICC or VOA for an entire month.
- Make horde unable to do any auctioning for an entire month

Ganking random noobs is without any impact, if you are trying to send a message...

Klepsacovic said...

Being social does not require bringing in leeches or accepting them. People can be not invited to raids for failing. Very few socials are blindly accepting of their group in all circumstances. I am social towards my brother, and yet I would never ask him to help me in a game or a computer, for I know his capabilities. Social does not mean blind.

Andru said...

This is ridiculous.


Whoever is masquerading as myself, please get out. You're not funny by stealing my name and you're confusing people.


Sorry Gevlon. I registered a Google account so the smarty-pants could not impersonate me any more.

I won't sign my comments with the unlinked name anymore.

Andru. (the real Kaaterina)

Sjonnar said...

"You don't always need a leader. If all members of a team are in an equal, high, intelligence standard, authority is absurd. They will know what they have to do and what not."

In theory, you're correct. But in reality, you're not. People always have the tendency to follow someone. If, for example, you have to chose to turn right or left, the "leader"'s opinion with prevail even if he's not the leader. Because even with the same goals and objectives, intelligent people can have different approaches to the same problems.

Also, what you say it's true: robots in a factory all know what to do and they don't need a leader. They cooperate perfectly to execute their job.

Chewy said...

What I don't really understand is your reason beyond your objective.

Let's assume that you succeed and that you've demonstrated you're correct, then what ?

You've proved what you already believe... surely you have enough faith in your own beliefs already ?

Or is this genuinely an experiment to test your beliefs ? If so then what time frame do you put on the experiment and will you publish a retraction ?

Anonymous said...

The problem with city raids that attempt to "hold the city" is in the fact that you will be playing raid vs. whole faction if you try it in a place like orgrimmar. That means you'll be fighting under immense lag, which kills your group but does nothing to impede the zerg. While your "elite forces" need to be able to react by using appropriate abilities to win, their lemming train just needs to hit one random button each to kill you.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon, your risk/reward is wonky at 20:1 and offers odds that even a chronic gambler would be hesitant to touch.

With such harsh penalties your team will avoid unusual tactics, and favour boring PvP strategies such as zerging.

Bring it down to 5:1 or similar if you want your group to experiment with new and usual ways of killing Horde.

PvP is not just a spreadsheet game like PvE. It's a sport and requires risk/reward analysis and an understanding of sport psychology.

Sjonnar said...

"Sjonnar said..."

No, no i didn't.
What Sjonnar really said is that you're a dumbass troll kid, and probably gev-i-on dressed up as a stalking horse. take your strawman arguments elsewhere, punk, and at least have the sand to sign your posts with your own name.

The first post at 15:20 was me. the second one at 16:53 was not.

Camiel said...

For the second time someone pirated my login name. I made an account now to show that it really is me, but I urge the other Zazkadin above to come up with his/her own name instead of pretending to be me!

Kro said...

Gevlon said:
There is a "social" experiment in the project: I want to prove that "being social" is not needed for cooperation. Only a common interest and a brain is needed.

As a matter of fact, what you describe here (cooperation) is "being social". It is a way of being social using different codes, different modes of relating to each other, different values (i would almost dare using the word "morals"). "Being social" means relating to a group or to other members of a shared group.

Whether you will want to admit the point or not, participating in the ganking project is the utter acceptance of becoming a member of the "ganking project group" (or guild, or whatever you call it). Supporting other gankers as they fight a target is an action which is not void of some communication... phatic (sorry for the "big" word) communication I would say.

Gevlon said
I want to create a shining example that defeats the common social belief: "being friendly social is the only way mankind can function". I want to prove that the social's utopia where "everyone helps the other" can be achieved exactly without social behavior: everyone needs the other, so they cooperate ("help" in social terms).
If your focus is on the "friendly" part of "being friendly social", then no doubt. There are other possible ways to relate to one another and to achieve some success at whatever goal you've set for yourself or for your group.

If what you want to prove is mostly about the "everyone" in the sentence "everyone helps the other", there is no doubt either. People come in many different flavours and even a single person's mood can change from "helpful" to "not helpful" depending on how cloudy the weather is or whatever came his way on that day. So yeah ! humans (wow-players included) function more in a fuzzy-logic sort of way. No surprise.

If what you want to achieve is shake the balance of power on a server, then i find it great and i wish you a lot of success because it really deserves the word "achievement".

If what you want to achieve is just support all your theories about socials and stuff, that's bullshit. You may call it intellectual masturbation or just narcissism that prevents you from understanding you're actually socializing using different paradigms.