Sorry for the bad English. I'm used to reading English text, not writing.
Let's talk in more detail about the process of obtaining points. To get the 18th rank you need to have 48 points or so. But the players do not stop there and earn even more points. And those who earned 48 points suddenly drop in rank. Let's look at the current table of antagonists. Only 5 people have the 18th rank. The first has 194 points, the fifth has 95. This indicates that only the top 5 players can have this rank, or the difference between the first and the last should not be more than 100 points.
Consider how many points the player earns and loses on winning or losing. I participated in closed beta tests and had much better skills than beginners. I played for the antagonist on the day of the release of the game. There were absolute beginners who did not know how to fight in close combat. I just used grapple and killed them all in 3-4 minutes. I doubt that this result can be improved in any way. I got 6 points.
After a while the players became more experienced. I again played for the antagonist. Confrontation was equivalent. It was really interesting, who will win. The game lasted 58 minutes! I won and got 2 points. Then I again played as an antagonist. The difficulty was about the same, the game also lasted about an hour, but I lost. And I lost 7 points.
I do not exactly remember what rank is needed for the most demanding weapons, perhaps the 10th. This is 2-3 well played matches or 5 poorly played matches. Which is not so much, I have already collected all the weapons. But if you want to compete for the 18th rank ...
Now let's assume that the player will always win, but only 2 points will be earned. And that the game session will last 30-60 minutes. To earn 150 points and get a stable 18th rank you need to spend 37-75 hours a week. The amount of time spent will increase substantially if the player loses. I have a question for top antagonists about the amount of their free time. And how honest methods they used to achieve such a rank.
I can mention technical problems. If your ping is higher than the ping for the rest of the players, then your punches, grips and dodges will often be ignored by the game\server.
By the way, cheaters. Unfortunately, I do not have any evidence, so I will not name specific names. But with 99.9% chance I can say that I met cheaters. For example, shooting through walls. Through hell a lot of walls. Invisibility (not Shae). As I know, during the grapple the player is invulnerable and can not be interrupted. So, I was interrupted. At least these three cases occurred with some top antagonists.
I fully agree with the preservation of the Story Concept. But considering all of the above, there must be an easier way. And I think that the way I mentioned in the first message does not violate the concept.
you can add special points, given when you defeat the antagonist. To the entire group at the end of the mission or personally to the player who killed the antagonist.
The more you confront the antagonists, the more you fight with them, the better you will know them. And after dozens of battles, you know about your enemy no less than about your own brother.
Besides, we do not know if these Darkest Secrets are hidden in Uras-Beherit's story at all. I opened everything except the last two. And it does not seem that there are some great secrets there)
