- one individual double-clicking in the foothills,
- one individual double-clicking in Metz cove,
- one individual triple-clicking (!) in noids,
- one bot healer in town,
- one bot librarian,
- one solo hunter in the east forest,
- and myself.
I can not say the same for double-clicking. It is an anti-social practice, and I feel that it is slowly strangling the game. I wonder how many times a player playing a healer has logged on, asked if healing services were needed somewhere and then logged off because those roles were being fulfilled by double-clickers. And as more people double-click, less roles require fulfilling.
I understand that sometimes a player may find it easier to just double-click instead of going through the hassle of organizing a hunt. Others may not have the time to organize a hunt. Some players may simply wish to be alone. And I understand that the population is low and that there are time when there are no other people online to fill a hunting role. This is when the problem becomes cyclical in nature.
I wish I knew how to address this problem.
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The problem of having to rely on other people is having to rely on other people.
ReplyDeleteIf there was a bigger population then when a healer or fighter had to leave they could be replaced. Far too often, especially when you're hunting in the tougher places, there isn't anyone around who could replace that fighter and there aren't any healers around who could replace the one who left. A person or two leaving means the hunt is over for everyone.
Well, not everyone likes being tied to doing what they want to do as long as there is someone else willing to do it with them. Plus, when there are no healers around it's either make your own so you can do something interesting, hunt for coins (boring), or go back in the library.
There are two ways to reduce this from happening, but not entirely eliminate it as people will always want to be alone.
One is to get a bigger population which is easier said than done, especially since Clan Lord is a niche game and takes entirely too long for people to level. This needs to be fixed if we want to have more people.
The other is to redo the healer class to give them something to do by themselves. This might seem contradictory but stick with me.
Because healers are tied to helping other people, few people want to make them as their only character. Many healers have fighters so they can do stuff and are often are using them instead. Some are willing to switch from their fighter to healer when need be, as I am, but many leave their healer behind and stick with their fighter.
If healers are given something to do by themselves, folks will have a reason to hang around with their healer longer because they can do something. People would be more likely to make a healer as their first character instead of a fighter. If healers are out of the library longer then there will be a healer to replace the one in the hunting group if one has to leave. If there are more healers around, then more hunting groups will be made and more fighters will leave the library.
To do this Clan Lord has to break out of the Fighters fight, Healers heal, and Mystics suck paradigm.
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ReplyDeleteI just wrote a long response and Blogger ate it. Now I suppose I'll have to do it again, less elegantly.
In short: Be careful what you wish for. Would you rather have 11 people on or 3? (You, Stora, Libra Ann.)
Do not work to simply (or at all) 'punish' double-clickers. Rather work to encourage more people online (streaming experience? stuff to do for healers?) and encourage more 'real people' in groups.
The example:
Super Chicken and Pe Ell used to hunt Ash City. Healers were not often available because they had to fit a large set of requirements: 1) High level (or else they'd be too-dead to super-high-darkus critters in Ash City in no time). 2) Rebel faction (or else they couldn't get in). 3) Fair amount of time (as the exit is nontrivial to get to). So SC and Pe could do one of several things: Not hunt, coin-hunt (boring), try to solo Ash City (worth a try once, heh!), go to the library, or double-click. They chose the fun option and double-clicked.
SC and Pe's hunt eventually brought more people out into the lands and hunting, as other fighters and healers were welcome to join them. They would much rather have real healers hunting with them and chose them whenever they could. But when they couldn't, they double-clicked. Their hunts, often during US daytime (a low time generally), brought out more exiles because it gave them something to do. Eventually their hunts were fairly large and had a bunch of *real* healers who came out just for their hunts. Hey, lots of people playing CL, good stuff!
But GMs decided this was a bad thing because the hunt often leaned back on alt-healers when others weren't available. Apparently GMs felt that they'd rather not have people play, period, than alt-heal.
SC and Pe were punished severely (more than deserved, and no one else was), and so quit their daily hunts. In fact, both of them stopped clanning much for a fair while afterwards. I know I was very sour towards CL for quite a while afterwards.
This led to lots of other people having nothing to do. Some healers (like Soul Hunter) who came out just for the hunts stopped coming around, and I don't think I've seen them at all in quite a while. Since the hunt was no more, people ended up just staying in the library more. Is that really what the GMs wanted?
So really, be careful what you wish for. Alt-healers support ClanLord when the population is low. There are fixes (mostly which involve making healing more fun), but simple punishment of those who double-click is not going to help ClanLord out in the long run. In fact, it'll likely just hurt it.
Especially if the punishments are not consistent. It's much worse when some people get punished (like SC and Pe) when others do not. Then it just looks like GM favoritism on top of being grossly unfair and unneeded.