i read the post all right. I noticed a ton of errors with this that would just ruin the game. The first one being that any weapon is allowed. Knowing snk he won't allow this only one gun rule and give the same BS excuse "they bought it they can use it" and not see how much this breaks gameplay. That's why if there's ever going to be events like this. They get to chose 3 guns that everyone choses but can only be used in the arena (like laser tag). The guns should look something like this

Basic gun:
that gun should be just a cloned M4 since that's the bread and butter of eras combat.

Since no one has given a full explanation of how guns worked. I made a conclusion a while back saying that the closer the freeze rate is to the ROF = how much time you can move between shots. Please correct if I am wrong.

SMG- allows higher maneuverability and fast ROF at the expense of low damage, high reload, and a low clip
Damage 5
clip 16
reload .6
ROF .2
spread .13
clip 16
freeze .07
time to move .13
t2k = 2.1
btk = 10

Heavy- heavy hitting 9 dmg with very high maneuverability and a moderate reload at the expense of a low clip
damage 9
clip 12
ROF .35
spread .65
freeze .17
reload .3
time to move .18
t2k = 2.1
btk = 6

2nd issue is the whole damn thing in general. I can not stand the whole warp back to lobby and not be able to play again until next round. I am more of a fan of kill limits. I say the arena should hold a max of 60 players. The 60 player map would be large, if theres less than 30 players then you down grade to a smaller map and if theres less that 15 players you go to an even smaller map.

3rd issue, its not an event. This needs to be set up like zones showdown. This being it is an event that occurs every 5 minutes and it notifies everyone. Zone has over 10x less players and I have never ever seen showdown empty.

4th issue the reward: Not good enough, 1st place should be 1ec 2nd 650, 3rd 300. This would actually encourage players to play since anything that gives out EC everyone will pounce for it and join.

5th issue scoring. I hate the whole kill-death thing. I would have not a huge issue with it if my gun system was implemented since there balanced in t2k (get down to it that matters the most). But if anygun was allowed hell no, that crap needs to go over to total kills because I can get more kills than a typical bar skrub with a sak than he can with a BAR. Era MUST if they want to get more players and a higher income, learn to make sure that every player has an = chance at winning weapons wise. Because lets face it. Even if you got mad skills like me in era. The odds are so much stacked against you if you use a low tier gun. No one enjoys losing or being mauled by kids who spent 80$ to buy a no skill gun and claim they are so MLG and you being harassed.

6th issue boosters: easy fix, write a script that says if you kill the same person 2 times in a row within 20 seconds then you are kicked out.

First off, my apologies for misunderstanding your wording in your previous post. I think maybe you were rushed and couldn't word it the way you intended.

Second, +REP. Excellent reply.
You've thoroughly analyzed the topic, and took the time to explain your reasoning behind each point. Mad respect to you, GIT.
Unfortunatly, I've got to "spread some love" before I can +Rep you, so I owe you one.

Like I said in the OP, this is up for discussion. Nothing is set in stone.
I'm just tired of seeing the PK Arena hardly being used, especially since it has potential if some work were put into it.

I put this on the forums to receive input, and when I pulled your post up on my cellphone during my Sign Language class, I couldn't wait to get home and reply to it.
I haven't been this excited about a forum post in a while.

Leggo.
I never thought about that. Giving players the option to select only a few guns to be only used within PK Arena would make it 100% fair from the get-go.
This would do two things:

• Make it fair.
• Attract people to PK Arena; because players will finally have somewhere to go where they won't have to worry about being at a mechanical disadvantage because of their gun.

Another option would be to have a 'base' gun to be used only in PK Arena, and players can set the stat variables themselves at the beginning of the match.

They would first select what type of gun they want (shotgun, handgun, rifle)
The stat variables would be: Freeze, Rate of Fire, Spread, Clip Size, Reload freeze.

They'd be given a certain amount of points(depending on the gun type), and it would be up to them how they wish to distribute them.
Since some stats have a significantly more diverse effect than others(Freeze has about 3x more impact on a gun than Spread), Freeze would cost about 3x the points that Spread would.

(I'd have to work out some limitations per gun type, and do some extensive testing on this to accurately define how much weight each stat should have, so I'm not going to throw out digits yet; it's only an idea right now.)

Freeze is the amount of seconds that firing the gun impedes your movement. Lower freeze means less seconds, means less of a speed impediment.
It's literal script is "freezeplayer x;", where x is the seconds.
Rate of Fire is the amout of time lapsed between shots, also in seconds. Lower RoF means less seconds between shots, which means more shots per second, and a higher RoF.
It's literal script is "timeout x;" where x is the seconds.

For example, let's say you've got a gun that has a Freeze of 0.5 and a Rate of Fire of 1
If you fired your gun, you would only be frozen for half a second, but you wouldn't be able to fire it again for 1 second(half a second after you're able to move again).

This is what it was when I was Era's first Gun Admin in 2007.
Freeze and RoF were two separate entities that could be altered without effecting one-another.

Somehow, when they emulated the gun script to iEra, something went severely wrong.
On iEra, if the Rate of Fire is lower than the Freeze, the Rate of Fire will be whatever the Freeze is.
Again- the script completely ignores the RoF if it is lower than the Freeze, and just sets it to whatever your freeze is.

It's for this reason that I refused to put out a Gatling Gun until this was fixed.
I couldn't release a gun with high RoF without giving it a rediculously low freeze. This would be the exact opposite of my check-and-balance that I usually employ when setting a gun's stats. A higher rate of fire(more bullets-per-second) should be countered by a higher freeze(more vulnerability while firing).

It really puts a damper on trying to make guns vary from one-another.

No, you'd be able to go in; just like the current PK Arena.
You can keep dying and going back in as long as the round is going.

Taking a death just means that you'd lose a point in your score, and you'd have to walk back in.

At the start of the round, your score is 0. For every kill, you gain 1 point. for every death, you lose 1 point.
After 15 minutes, the person with the highest score (Kills - Deaths = Score) wins.
Then 30 seconds may lapse so that players can vote on an arena, switch their guns, etc. before the next round starts.

I'd be more inclined to say less players would be better aswell; less lag, less chaos.
I'm just afraid that too many people would miss boat on it.

As for the size of the map pending on the amount of players, I agree.
That way if you have 10 players, they won't have to walk around a large gmap to find the fight, and they won't have the option of sandbagging.

I stated in the OP that it should be this way- perhaps you missed it.
I absolutely love the way Showdown is.

There's no staff intervention, and it's a constant PKing event.

With the frequency this will be going on(every 15 minutes), I can't help but feel like we'd be just handing out ECs if 1 EC was the prize.

Perhaps another approach: "PK Tokens".
1st Place = 10 Tokens
2nd Place = 5 Tokens
3rd Place = 3 Tokens

PK Tokens can be traded in for Event Coins: 30 tokens = 1 EC (Three 1st place wins)

This way cash isn't even a factor, and it people would be gaining credit towards getting an EC as long as they placed within the top three.
These tokens could also go towards cosmetic upgrades in PK Arena, such as skins for their PK Arena guns.

You share the same disgust in the Pay2Win mentality as I do. +respect

Again- I agree with you on having set weapons in PK Arena.

I could foresee this 20-second kick thing being exploited.
I could keep b-lining you, intentionally running into your bullets as you shoot at other people; having you kill me over and over again until you get kicked for killing me twice within 20 seconds.

Perhaps if somebody kills the same person twice within 40 seconds, they won't gain a kill the 2nd time.
The person dying, however, will gain a death both times, because they're clearly trying to rig the system.

I say 40 seconds because, boosting couldn't be justified; they wouldn't really gain from it.
They'd be able to get more kills if they actually participated in fighting.
Additionally, they'd to compete with other people trying to kill their 'mule', as well as dodging bullets from other people shooting at them.

Unless they hired two mules to help them boost, in which they'd alternate between killing mules.
But again, they'd have to compete with other people attacking the mules.

My apologies but I don't really play iEra, so correct me wherever i'm wrong but I enjoyed reading this thread and thought I'd share my input.

So, from what I've read, some players argue that you should only be able to use a particular gun (M4?) in the arena however those that have purchased better weapons such as the BAR have the right to use them.

So why not just create two types of lobbies for the arena? 'Ranked' (PK Arena based on skill) VS 'Friendly' (PK Arena where all guns can be used)

You would be satisfying all the players, and iEra certainly has the playercount to make this possible, so yeah.

That's funny, because there's a PC Era player named Reece that started around 2005.

I think they've been afraid to overtly segregate the BAR because they wouldn't want to upset BAR players. Before, the BAR was the only gun of its class. They didn't want the 'BAR-Enabled Spars' to turn into ghost towns, causing the BAR sparrers to have wasted 90 USD.

Now we have more Top-Tier Guns, and everybody and their brother has one. It's not really discriminating against a single gun anymore. Plus there's enough people with these guns to provide enough competition for one-another to make the 'Ghost Town' theory a null concern.

I've actually been giving it some thought lately; the more I think about it, the more I think it wouldn't be a bad idea, that should have been done sooner.

Even If it were added based on popular demand, and the 'Tier-4 Enabled Gun' spars turn into ghost towns, it's really not something Tier-4 Gun users could hold against staff members, because it's the players' choice to not use the Spars.

If they lack competition, they're going to have to suck it up and use a real gun.

I wouldn't use the name 'Ranked' and 'Friendly though, because 'Friendly' suggests that stats wouldn't be recorded.

In fact, I wouldn't even give the arena a label, or any indication that any gun was disabled in it. I would just add a new spar arena to the GMAP that has Tier-4 Guns disabled, and let the players figure it out.

All These Ideas Are Great But I'd Like To Know If This Idea/Plan Will Be Put Into Place Within The Pk Arena Because I Do Agree With Meph About The Pk Arena Not Being Used Often It's Rare When There Are Challenges Within The Pk Arena And Seeing As The Spar Complex Is Always Being Used Why Can't We Make Pking More Enjoyable For All Players Who Dislike It Due To these Reasons. I'm Positive Your Ideas Will Help Encourage More People To Pk With These Ideas Put Into Place.

I don't blame you, im bad at wording things

I say no to the "customize your gun stats" outlook. Main reason being that everyone will have no clue at all what freeze, sleep, spread, would mean and get down to it those are very crucial to the guns gameplay. It would also cause imbalance to the game as you would get one 1337 player who is just shredding everyone up. Then gets basically a M4 with hardly any freeze and an insane ROF. This would lead to people raging and leaving midgame since they can't kill that one person. I would much rather have my set up of there's 3 guns to choose from, you select that gun and go into the arena. Once you die you warp back to the lobby then can choose another gun if you wish and respawn into the game. This would be pure skill based, and giving something era hasn't had in 3 years being balanced fun competitive gameplay. If this turns out to be a huge success then era could start making team based games that get base hours where anyone can join (like spring in zone). This would completely revive competitive basing in zone. The potential for this can be huge. I would easily leave zone and go back to era if this was done.

you weren't around back in the days of laser tag, but that event had about 60 players, and it was a blast. It wasn't uber laggy (except on the small classic cluster map with too many choke points). Everyone played laser tag. This was back in the days of when the player count wasn't even at 1000 max. With the player count just skyrocketing, its going to need to hold a lot more players.

Oh no, trust me, you want EC as a prize. I have been playing iera longer than you and believe me, if you mention EC, everyone goes nuts. As for it being first prize this is perfectly reasonable. Why is because since everyone would be trying to cram into the arena for EC better people (especially those 1337 sparrers) would join constantly and since everyone has guns with the same t2k. ALSO the fact that theres 60 players. It's a fair game that your odds of winning or placing 2 times in a row are super low. The pk tokens does sound like a better idea for 2nd and 3rd place prizes though. 14 for second and 10 for 3rd.

The 20 second kick I like. This way, you are forced to not attack and kill the person you just killed and give them a break from you. I suppose they still can kill you though, so maybe it should also apply to the victim that they can't go after the shooter after they died. They still can attack them, but not kill.
Mules are useless. With the limit being 20 seconds if you kill the first mule then the second, you still have to wait to go back to the first mule.

Oh boy, this is exciting- Nobody ever goes tat for tat with me on these forums.

This is how ideas are made, man.
It wouldn't be any more difficult than customizing your skater on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games:
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/3X41pILFZ-I/hqdefault.jpg

That's the goal- If somebody is "1337", don't they deserve to shred everybody up? Their skill would be doing the shredding, after all.

This wouldn't be possible. Nobody would have enough points to put an excessive amount into both Freeze and RoF. They could balance the two, or chose which one they want to put more points into.

Remember: The more points they put into one stat, the less they'll have to put into the others. If they focus their points into RoF or Freeze, they won't deal much damage, they'll have a very low clip size, and they'll have a huge reload freeze. So they'll have to reload frequently, and they'll be highly vulnerable when reloading.

Also, there would be a cap on all variables, so no stat could be absurdly high.
I'm not opposed to the 3 guns, I just threw out a more versatile and customizable alternative. Instead of being stuck with the same guns, people would be able to create their own variety with my method; and it would have limitations in play so that making an OP gun would be impossible.

I admit, I've never seen Laser Tag on iEra, but Laser tag was around in 2003 on PC Era. It was one of the first events introduced. And from your earlier description of the three attainable powerups acquired by gaining LaserTag kills, it sounds like it hasn't changed much.

Yeah- it was fun. I never knew they brought that to iEra.

Nothing is new under the sun.
This was going on in 2004 when Event Coins were introduced to Era.

People go wild because EC are valuable. The only way to obtain them is by winning events, or by doing some kind of exclusive task administered by Staff Members. EC aren't as easy to obtain as the Gralat-- people actually have to put in effort to obtain them. This required effort dictates the EC's value.

Additionally, it's the currency required to purchase Event Items. This creates a harmonious balance: Event Items keep their value as long as Event Coins remain scarce. As the only set of items on iEra that have real worth, it is imperative that Event Items to keep their value and remain exclusive.

The exclusivity of Event Items justifies their stats as well. The fact that the Katana is harder to obtain justifies the fact that it deals more damage and is faster than a Starter Knife. Events Items are exclusive because the EC has scarcity. The harder an item is to obtain, the more scarcity it has. What you're suggesting would make the EC less scarce, and therefore lower its value.

It's simple economics: more EC into the economy will allow consumers to buy more Events Items. This increase in the demand will result in higher prices on the Events Items, in order for the Events Items to keep their value.


I do think that more event coins should be rewarded for PKing activities such as the one suggested in this thread. However, rewarding 1 every 15 minutes is 92 Event Coins into the server per day, after a 30 second intermission between matches is considered. And this is in addition to the ones ETs are handing out.

The "PK Token" idea I suggested earlier almost cuts that number in half:
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/...phi/ecoins.png
Additionally, this method is more evenly distributed between the top three winners.

55 EC automatically being hosted daily is still pretty hefty.

If only Graal natively supported instanced maps. It'd be so much easier to handle shoving in as many players as it takes to please said players and yet still retain a manageable groups of players for the server to handle in the same area.

Anytime that Meph posts something, I always know that I'm about to read a book.

WTF!~ Are you kidding me...Ahahaha.

nice idea meph, the pk arena would actually be useful if this was implemented

Fort Killers is a gang pk event, this would be individual still would be fun to have.
The PK arena is never used so this would be fun to add

This sounds like a cool idea.

Be nice if there were multiple maps to choose from. (Forest, urban, arctic, and desert)

The arena right now just feels like a oversized spar room.

[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]yeah now that i think about it, a lot of events and what not will have to be cut out for 92 ec a day. Admins will never do that so the tokens seem better.[/COLOR]
im too lazy to split up the quotes.

It Probably Won't Since Staff Are "Too Busy" On Holiday Items, And Stop Typing Like This Please.

People would learn over time. They would be able to alter them every time they went to the lobby, so they could figure out what works for them and what doesn't work for them.

I'd also venture off to say they should have the ability to save stats for use in future games, so that they could load them up similar to the way outfits are loaded in the tailor system.

Most people will eventually find something that works for them and stick with it.
OH! You must have misunderstood lol, I knew something was off.

There are no 'stat upgrades'. Such a thing would defeat my goal of making it fair. The only reward for winning is the PK tokens mentioned. The upgrades I was referring to were merely cosmetic upgrades; such as new skins.

Everybody -- from the player who plays their first time to a player who is playing for their nine-hundredth time-- has the same amount of points to allocate into their stats as they see fit.

Points cannot be purchased with PK Tokens. Everybody has the same amount.

This was an issue with Laser Tag back in 2004 PC Era: As players got more kills, they could upgrade to the next level gun, which did more damage. Level 1 did 0.5, Level 2 did 1, and level 3 did 1.5.

This meant that experienced players who got the level 3 gun could kill opponents in 7 hits, while players who only had the level 1 gun had to land 20 hits to kill the same opponent.

New players were already at a disadvantage because they couldn't fight as well. This made it even harder for them to contend. I wouldn't dream of recreating this-- you know me better than that GIT :3 lol.

I still owe you that +REP, but evidently I still have to "spread more love around."

OH okay then. However its not really nessacary, all the guns in era play out the same way in a certain catagory. The run n gun low freeze low damage high rof
assaulting low freeze slow-mid rof and 8-9 damage and the Gunners that are assault guns with a higher freeze and high rof. I would suppose this could work out