Your input on: "zone line whoring"

[Alduin]

Dear community,

the topic of zone line whoring rises every once in a while. Zone line whoring is a problem we are aware of but which is hard to tackle. Neocron's current architecture needs those Zone lines to work and changing it would be a huge undertaking on a timescale of at least a year or so and is therefore not an option at the moment. Therefore we need to think about other ways to solve this problem.

On option worth considering in our opinion is to introduce a sync cooldown after shooting, such that e.g. 10 to 20 seconds after your last shot you cannot sync. What are your thoughts about this? What other options do you have in mind?

We are aware of the fact that we are opening Pandora's box here. So just a quick reminder: Keep this discussion calm! Flamewars will not be tolerated and will lead to a vacation from the brainport.

Slauncha,
Alduin

[Cursed Shadow]

The problem I see with putting a penalty on Last Shot before Sync is that most of the PvP'ers that dominate these areas are Spies, which have a stealth advantage over other classes to avoid damage long enough to zone out.

I think what we do need is a downtime when you ENTER a zone, however I think the person should be safe during that time too, and I think this should only affect city sectors.

I'm not sure what the best solution is. Perhaps if you had a 'Sphere of Protection' between entering zones which made you unable to pull a weapon for 5-10 seconds, but you could not be targeted/receive damage either. (Like a temporary Law Enforcement +1 buff).

This would make the idea of zone line fighting more tedious because you're constantly waiting for your cool down to finish before you can get back into the fight.

Another consideration, what about removing buffs between zone synchs? If you're trying to buff your friends with a PPU before they enter a fight at the other side of a zone line. If they lost all of their buffs, well, I'm pretty sure that would balance out the fight, as well as reduce the usefulness of PPUs in Zoneline Fights. (Again, this needs to only apply to City Sectors)
The above statement would be balanced if you only removed third party buffs during synchs, and maintained self-cast buffs.

[Chuck Norris]

after a successful damaging of a player, you will get a buff/debuff that is not removable except upon wearing off in 60 seconds or death, which makes you KoS to all factions AKA gaurds/copbots. this will help combat zone whoring in towns. you can add guards/cops accordingly to zone lines.

This wont help to much with zone whoring at op's tho so shrug

Quick thought that can be ironed out.... just theory crafting here

[Chuck Norris]

Another consideration, what about removing buffs between zone synchs? If you're trying to buff yourself before entering a fight at the other side of a zone line, if you lost all of your buffs, well, I'm pretty sure that would level out the fight. (Again, this needs to only apply to City Sectors)

I really like this idea, really kills off the two boxers zone line buffers, this would help with ops also

[Cursed Shadow]

I really like this idea, really kills off the two boxers zone line buffers, this would help with ops also

I did just change this slightly. I think it should only remove third party buffs.
Otherwise a PPU would be toast after he zoned ^^

Perhaps that's not a bad thing though!

[Doc Holliday]

removing buffs on zoning fucks the ppu and the pe. foreign shields could work but that then fucks the apu hard if he gets buffed before he zones.

have to consider each option carefully people. If your an apu and your at an op fight and you zone up say from the UG and u get a long synch your fucked. Your fucked even quicker without buffs.

[Cursed Shadow]

I stated repeatedly,this should be the case for City War Zone Sectors only. E.g. PP1.

[SilentEye]

You have to think of the zone line as non existent. As such, removing buffs on zoning sounds very illogical to me, the penalty seems too strong.

I like the original idea where zoning gets disabled for a while, I think some discussion should happen on the criteria that triggers the disabling.

Would it happen after you shoot? Or after you get damaged? Maybe always?

[Cursed Shadow]

You have to think of the zone line as non existent. As such, removing buffs on zoning sounds very illogical to me, the penalty seems too strong.

I like the original idea where zoning gets disabled for a while, I think some discussion should happen on the criteria that triggers the disabling.

Would it happen after you shoot? Or after you get damaged? Maybe always?

BlackMaze, I love you, I really do, but we cannot think of the Zone Line as non-existent. It's existence is being abused.

The problem with the 'Zoning gets disabled for a while' argument, is that we need to consider the scenario that can be abused here:

I run into PP1 and notice another runner and begin to do battle. He calls in his buddy who is lurking in the Club or Tsunami HQ. I have no way out now, I cannot zone away and their belt is mine to take.

Any kind of prevention of zoning, will just be exploited/capitalized upon in a different format using gang up tactics.

[SilentEye]

BlackMaze, I love you, I really do, but we cannot think of the Zone Line as non-existent. It's existence is being abused.

I love you too

I understand what you say but I still think removing buffs is too strong. But let's see what others think

EDIT:

A little idea that just popped up with me; maybe add a timer on the zone actions. So when you zone, you remain in the zone for a second or 5 before you zone.

There could be criteria on this;

Only when you have been in combat for the past 5 seconds (shooting or damage wise) you get the cool down.

Cool down doesn't have to be on zone lines, only on objects such as sewer hatches, OP undergrounds

Think about it, just throwing some stuff up!

[devilstriker]

Delete the Savezones so no PPU's stand there AFKand waits for someone to heal and shield.

[Ivan Eres]

Delete the Savezones so no PPU's stand there AFKand waits for someone to heal and shield.

I think you should at least read the initial post before making suggestions.

Dear community,
[...]Neocron's current architecture needs those Zone lines to work and changing it would be a huge undertaking on a timescale of at least a year or so and is therefore not an option at the moment. Therefore we need to think about other ways to solve this problem.
[...]
Slauncha,
Alduin

[Cursed Shadow]

Delete the Savezones so no PPU's stand there AFKand waits for someone to heal and shield.

I believe you're actually saying that all zones around e.g. PP1 should be made non-safe, meaning you can pull a weapon there.

The problem with this, is that neighbouring PP1 is the Tsunami HQ, if you were to make it a zone whereby you could pull a gun, well droners would exploit the hell out of it for levelling purposes.

[nabbl]

Some time ago I made a suggestion to counter sync-laming where people are constantly trying to sync in and out of levelzones to avoid getting hit:

http://forum.neocron-game.com/showth...ighlight=synch

Maybe we can enhance this.
Why not implementing a "fight-mode" trigger. When you are shooting at someone (firing your weapon) you are set in "fight-mode". Means that you can't leave a zone after a certain amount of time passed where you didn't shoot anymore. Let's say it is 10 seconds.

This could even be a nice feature. Think of being in the pepper park sectors and you get shot. You have two possibilities. Run or shoot back, knowing that shooting back means that either you die or the enemy dies.

But we have to be careful with Spies. Stealth should pause the counter. Let's say you are shooting someone and he comes back at you, so you find it useful to get into stealth. 10 seconds are not a long time for stealthers. They can simply wait near a zoneline and sync after the 10 seconds are out.
When you go into stealth your counter should stop at the point where you went into stealthing.

[hatmankh]

I think nabbl's suggestion would be fair, stealthers can still escape combat more easily, especially in the wasteland but at least you'll have a chance to kill them as they need to wait 10 seconds unstealthed before they can zone.

I don't support the suggestions in here for removing ppu buffs on zoning, it would get tedious having to constantly rebuff whenever you zone and with the zone timer it's really unnecessary to mess with buffs too.