Different zones

In most MMOs, there are zones people move on to to keep people that have accomplished everything in their particular zone from griefing those that just arrived.

• It makes it very clear when people intentionally stay in a particular zone to grief newer players and so it will ease moderation.
• It will enable suggestions to be evaluated based on what zone it applies to, making it so more content that has limited usefulness or appeal can be evaluated by people in that zone instead of having to get the approval of people that have moved on. (it would be more possible to get content through without a bunch of 100s gatekeeping what will and won't be worked on).
• It would resolve a lot of inequities- folks at 4k days and billions of stats would spend their time with similar players while new players would spend time with other new players.
• Item availability across zones would shake up the meta- suddenly folks in early zones would find that currently undesireable weapons or armors have a purpose.
• The best items would be reserved for the most competitivie zones, so even if someone chooses not to advance, they mostly hurt themselves by denying themselves access to other players with the items they want.
• Having different areas would hopefully make building out the mission system with additional mission givers make sense.

So how would zone membership be selected?
I am open to other options, but my current thinking is based on ranks.

With 26 ranks, there would be a zero rank area, 6 for 4 ranks each, and a final area for rank 25s. Or 10 Areas with the 6 spread out to 8 areas of 3 ranks each.

Other possibilities-
elo
time played (this would hurt players trying to play hard because they simply can't add time played faster than one second per second)
Raw XP (not levels)
Number of awards achieved

(additional refinements welcome)


As a side note, I have felt this would be a good idea for a very long time. I am posting it now because with the cloud migration, it seems to be a much more realistic possibility.

[image: i.kym-cdn.com]

I guess it's "ask for handholding" week or something. Not only do we definitely not need "zones", but rank triggers are a pretty unreliable way of measuring that, since some rank triggers are inconsistent or can be "lost"

The thing that appealed most to me about Torn was how all players interact with no restrictions, no zones as you put it. I’d hate to see this feel taken away and significant changes to game mechanics occur because… I don’t know why exactly. I don’t see any upside but significant downside, please keep it the way it is. If a player doesn’t like the way it is, that’s fine because the game isn’t for everyone.

So no criticism of the core idea worth discussing. Got it.

Always love it when the only response from detractors is "don't move my cheese".

I listed some other possibilities. Rank triggers were an option that fit the bill fairly cleanly. Raw XP as opposed to level might be another option that I should add to the original.

See, the ability to interact with higher level players is a huge problem- it means that some players get a huge leg up on others when people are nice and get knocked a long way back when people are slimy and scam or abuse them.

Sounds like you were generally a beneficiary. My experience was mixed, but probably more good than bad.

Is it really a 'huge problem'? People who are naive, stupid, or are assholes, surely will find the negative consequences of that regardless of what zone they're in. Does it really matter to a newbie whether they're scammed or abused by someone with 10B stats or someone with 1m? Sure, they'll be able to catch up with them in stats faster, but, then they're moved to the next zone, and they can be harassed by the next level (assuming they didn't learn).

This suggestion also would really wreck factions the way they currently exist. It'd basically encourage factions to be single zone only (unless you come up with some complicated way to make some sort of interaction work, but, then you're presumably increasing the possibility for abuse again).

Yes, it would shift around factions as we know them. I think that would be a very good thing. Right now, there is a huge disparity in growth based on what faction a person gets into. Someone that has a rich benefactor is able to do a bunch of happy jumps and skip a huge grind everyone else has to go through while certain new players get to survive bounty tsunamis because they said the wrong thing to a bored rich player.

A big part of the game is the social aspect though. Under your plan, if you perform too well, you'd get booted from your faction to join a faction in a higher zone, and if you, for whatever reason, don't perform as well, you'd lose your friends because you can't keep up with their zone and get left behind.

Obviously, there's a limit to what factions currently tolerate, but most mid-tier factions are okay with a long-term member not performing up to par for months due to real life issues. They don't just have to go make new friends (which would hurt player retention - if it weren't for the people I know, I'd have quit the game, probably).

Life won't be fair, here nor irl. A rich player can just drop $10k on donator packs and happy jump right out of the gate, whereas some other players can't even afford to subscribe for $5/month. People with good social skills will be able to get more help than people with poor ones (and being able to form relationships and leverage them is part of the game). People who are smart and willing to read guides etc will perform better than those who aren't and don't. Etc.

I don't want fairness of outcomes. I want an environment that makes it painful on thise that wish to grief people. And Torn is currently built to enable griefing.

The leveling of the playing field is about making griefing unproductive. The only people someone will be around are those that are good at something they aren't good at or balanced players that are doing just fine as they come up. That will minimize the opportunities to grief people and have the side effect of making the experience more fair.

As to the social aspect of the game, I have had friends at many factions. I have retained friends through Discord much more than I have through game chat with three major exceptions. So I really am not sure there is as much of a limitation on in game relationships as you might think.

but why

I benefited from learning the way of the game and not trying to change it or whine when stronger players beat on me. I took my lumps and learned my lessons and am stronger for it. Your version of the game would turn out players who aren’t capable of interacting with the rest of the player base.

It's been ask for handholding month to be honest. It's like every 28 or 29 player just wants the game to be Farmville. Didn't realize they had infected the 26s too.

Guess 31 months still isn't long enough.

Learn to play with the big boys or play somewhere else. -R

Torn is meant to be Torn though, not Paradise. A big part of this game is the ability to be an asshole. People used to be able to mug people back-to-back until they had no cash left on them (well before I joined). The forums were rougher and have become much tamer since Bogie became CM (some of which is good). Trying to remove the ability to grief is trying to take away a core part of what makes Torn Torn.

Discord's existence is not really a good reason to wreck in-game social groups such as factions. It might work for you, but some people just really like their faction. I tried a top faction once and ended up leaving after a month because I missed my peeps.

Overall, I feel like you're trying to fix something that's a feature, not a bug.

Griefing is a feature, not a bug. Do you even hear yourself?

The game isn't setup for the big boys to be played with. Learn some math.

Yep. It fills a niche there. This is not a feel-good game. Now, I do think that on very rare occasions people take things too far, but, sharkeyfive's been perm fedded now, so...

Every time I've had someone camping me I've dealt with it, from the time a guy started attempting to buymug me every time i sold anything starting two months after I started playing all the way til now. Yet I'm still here doing fine and you're two years in still whining.

Instead of trying to make the game easier, learn the game. It's honestly not hard to keep your head down, read, and ask questions. But no, better to bitch on the forums, and when pointed out that this is how it's intended to be you bitch at everyone who corrects you.

This is the type of attitude experienced players are sick of.

All those "other possibilities" were listed after my response (post edit timestamps are public), but the point still stands, this is unnecessary, detracts from the game itself, and is not in the spirit of the game. This isn't "don't move my cheese," it's "stop trying to change and over process my cheese to the point that it tastes shitty and is so unrecognisable as cheese, you legally have to refer to it as 'cheez' with a z so the government doesn't kick your teeth in"