Dalas
Prowler
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2006
- Posts
- 1,040
- Location
- Haugesund, Norway
- Society
- Death Unlimited
- Avatar Name
- Luke Dalas Cambridge
Hey forum, I'd just like to share my thoughts about Merry Mayhem this year and going forward. I'm hoping to add to a bigger pool of ideas that MA can choose to test out for future Mayhems.
I speak from the point of view of myself and my girlfriend, Witchiness Freja Braveheart, whose avatar we took through Mayhem this year, our first ever attempt.
Ok, so there is a lot of talk about guns switching hands (namely, the Terminator) and other so-called "unfair" play in Mayhem. There is no doubt that it's unbalanced and even unfair, and a lot of people have come with solutions. It is not only the Terminator that is unbalanced either, but it appears that some weapons are ending up in some strange places. I know of several people who did not participate because they know people cheat their way to prizes using alt avatars in lower categories.
I am all for getting the benefit from your investment, but there is a bigger picture we need to be looking at here.
If you look at the CLD payout that came along with Mayhem 2012, you can see that there were 3 weeks of over 5 ped payouts per deed. This time we only had one week with such a result. This tells us that not as many people are participating. It's also pretty noticeable just by looking in the forum and talking with people that something was off this year for most people.
The focus for improving Mayhem should not necessarily be to remove all competitive elements but to get more people to try! When Cat 5 doesn't even have enough participants to match prizes, we know something is up.
One solution for future Mayhems would be similar to Yquem's, read about that here. Yquem basically says that Mayhem should work like The Hub on Planet Cyrene.
In the Hub there is a specific set of weapons and items available and no other items can be used inside apart from those ones. The Hub also puts people on the same health points and running speed, to level the field a bit. The way to progress in the Hub is to PvP there to gain tokens to gain better weapons, so loyalty is rewarded.
Yquem was neither referring to a token or PvP system, but if we translate that to Mayhem, it would equate to a specific set of guns and items available to buy, which are only usable within Mayhem.
I would elaborate on Yquem's point by suggesting that:
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INVESTMENTS?!
Yep, seen this discussion before. I want to nip it in the bud here and say that I am referring specifically to MERRY MAYHEM. All other Mayhem-like events should be unaffected by a change in Merry Mayhem. This way, those who have invested in uber weapons or want to give their uber weapons to their grandmother, cat and even hamster are free to do so and gain their benefits, for example through collecting points faster.
AND THE LOOT?
This raises a problem with loot: Guns! Photonic/Binary Mayhem guns are understandable and have become popular weapons to use generally, so they could probably stay in loot. It's the other guns that don't necessarily need to drop (Enigma L5, Spirit Mk.whatever, Soul Mk.blahblah). So what could drop instead?
Perhaps some nice (rare) components and ingredients to make high-DPS (L) weapons which could bring people closer to the Terminator's DPS. This would serve the purpose of levelling the playing field in other event situations. Crafters would then have a role of their own to play in Mayhem, especially if they got BP loots during Mayhem time for these high DPS weapons.
So there it is. I think that's the closest we can get to "fair" while still allowing people to get benefits from their investments, while still encouraging EVERYONE to take part in Merry Mayhem.
What do you reckon?
I speak from the point of view of myself and my girlfriend, Witchiness Freja Braveheart, whose avatar we took through Mayhem this year, our first ever attempt.
Ok, so there is a lot of talk about guns switching hands (namely, the Terminator) and other so-called "unfair" play in Mayhem. There is no doubt that it's unbalanced and even unfair, and a lot of people have come with solutions. It is not only the Terminator that is unbalanced either, but it appears that some weapons are ending up in some strange places. I know of several people who did not participate because they know people cheat their way to prizes using alt avatars in lower categories.
I am all for getting the benefit from your investment, but there is a bigger picture we need to be looking at here.
If you look at the CLD payout that came along with Mayhem 2012, you can see that there were 3 weeks of over 5 ped payouts per deed. This time we only had one week with such a result. This tells us that not as many people are participating. It's also pretty noticeable just by looking in the forum and talking with people that something was off this year for most people.
The focus for improving Mayhem should not necessarily be to remove all competitive elements but to get more people to try! When Cat 5 doesn't even have enough participants to match prizes, we know something is up.
One solution for future Mayhems would be similar to Yquem's, read about that here. Yquem basically says that Mayhem should work like The Hub on Planet Cyrene.
In the Hub there is a specific set of weapons and items available and no other items can be used inside apart from those ones. The Hub also puts people on the same health points and running speed, to level the field a bit. The way to progress in the Hub is to PvP there to gain tokens to gain better weapons, so loyalty is rewarded.
Yquem was neither referring to a token or PvP system, but if we translate that to Mayhem, it would equate to a specific set of guns and items available to buy, which are only usable within Mayhem.
I would elaborate on Yquem's point by suggesting that:
- These guns should be MAXED at the MINIMUM requirement to enter a category (i.e those in Category 2 would be maxed at level 25).
- This means that everyone within a category could use even the biggest available weapon, as long as the relevant skill was up to the minimum requirement in the category.
- There could be a selection of guns, say 3 relevant to each combat style; small, medium and big.
- Avatars would NOT be affected on entry, so NO skills would be changed.
- This means we would still have the same Evade, HP and all other benefits of skilling. The only difference would be that the guns would be even.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INVESTMENTS?!
Yep, seen this discussion before. I want to nip it in the bud here and say that I am referring specifically to MERRY MAYHEM. All other Mayhem-like events should be unaffected by a change in Merry Mayhem. This way, those who have invested in uber weapons or want to give their uber weapons to their grandmother, cat and even hamster are free to do so and gain their benefits, for example through collecting points faster.
AND THE LOOT?
This raises a problem with loot: Guns! Photonic/Binary Mayhem guns are understandable and have become popular weapons to use generally, so they could probably stay in loot. It's the other guns that don't necessarily need to drop (Enigma L5, Spirit Mk.whatever, Soul Mk.blahblah). So what could drop instead?
Perhaps some nice (rare) components and ingredients to make high-DPS (L) weapons which could bring people closer to the Terminator's DPS. This would serve the purpose of levelling the playing field in other event situations. Crafters would then have a role of their own to play in Mayhem, especially if they got BP loots during Mayhem time for these high DPS weapons.
So there it is. I think that's the closest we can get to "fair" while still allowing people to get benefits from their investments, while still encouraging EVERYONE to take part in Merry Mayhem.
What do you reckon?
