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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Bounty system, corruption and ways to get rid of it
Hi everyone!
First of all, I want to stress out that I sincerely believe in this game and I want to thank developers for this project which made me rethink my skeptical attitude towards MMORPG genre these days.
That said, I would like to discuss the corruption system from a perspective of other players, possible bounty system and ways to get rid of corruption.
I read almost all threads regarding PKing but If I missed something, please forgive me. Getting flagged red for killing non-combat player is a good idea and we now know (or speculate) what are the consequences for being “red” (stats drop etc.). But what are the options for other players, be it red or green? Do we get some kind of reward for killing red player or some kind of loot? Would there be bounty on their heads and what are the ways to get it (just killing the player?)? I have few short suggestions.
a) The higher the corruption of player, the highest the bounty on their head + the more things we can loot from his/her corpse, that he actually carries (a full gear and weapons with the highest level of corruption)
b) When somebody finds out where is his/her house (whether it’s located within the node city or just in the wilderness) you can form a group and brake inside his/her house and take some loot and obtain reward for killing the perpetrator.
How to lose corruption?
Here are my thoughts on “how to lose corruption” system might look like:
You would need to pay a massive fee (depending on your corruption level) that would be split among your victims. In that moment, your stats (since you apparently lose your stats with increasing corruption) will reset, but you will be still flagged and your stats will immediately drop to their state before the payment when you kill another non-combat player. You will lose all corruption only after some time (depending on corruption level) without killing any non-combat player (with the highest level of corruption it could take a month).
I apologize for my English, another Europe guy here :)
I’m looking forward to your replies and to (hopefully) nice discussion,
Ervin
First of all, I want to stress out that I sincerely believe in this game and I want to thank developers for this project which made me rethink my skeptical attitude towards MMORPG genre these days.
That said, I would like to discuss the corruption system from a perspective of other players, possible bounty system and ways to get rid of corruption.
I read almost all threads regarding PKing but If I missed something, please forgive me. Getting flagged red for killing non-combat player is a good idea and we now know (or speculate) what are the consequences for being “red” (stats drop etc.). But what are the options for other players, be it red or green? Do we get some kind of reward for killing red player or some kind of loot? Would there be bounty on their heads and what are the ways to get it (just killing the player?)? I have few short suggestions.
a) The higher the corruption of player, the highest the bounty on their head + the more things we can loot from his/her corpse, that he actually carries (a full gear and weapons with the highest level of corruption)
b) When somebody finds out where is his/her house (whether it’s located within the node city or just in the wilderness) you can form a group and brake inside his/her house and take some loot and obtain reward for killing the perpetrator.
How to lose corruption?
Here are my thoughts on “how to lose corruption” system might look like:
You would need to pay a massive fee (depending on your corruption level) that would be split among your victims. In that moment, your stats (since you apparently lose your stats with increasing corruption) will reset, but you will be still flagged and your stats will immediately drop to their state before the payment when you kill another non-combat player. You will lose all corruption only after some time (depending on corruption level) without killing any non-combat player (with the highest level of corruption it could take a month).
I apologize for my English, another Europe guy here :)
I’m looking forward to your replies and to (hopefully) nice discussion,
Ervin
0
Comments
Your first(that the amount of loot you get depends of your corruption level) suggestion is a good idea in my opinion! :D
but for your second one:
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b) When somebody finds out where is his/her house (whether it’s located within the node city or just in the wilderness) you can form a group and brake inside his/her house and take some loot and obtain reward for killing the perpetrator.
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The death penalty being tripple & the chance of you losing your items is already a hard enough punish in my opinion. I also don't think breaking in in someone's house is a good idea, considering some people see it as their "private area" in the world & will highly dislike it(and will most likly quit). (=> my idea instead of breaking in: The corrupted players needing to pay taxes/higher taxes in the node that their house is located.)
For your solution: I approve of the cooldown, where you lose corruption after a certain time of not killing a non-combat player.
You are right, the punishment would be too severe. About your idea: I expect some players to form assassins/thiefs guilds. If these guilds take over some node, they would not be punished by this system you are proposing, since the money would go to their pockets (or would be used for building up their node) :)
Now that I think about this corruption system, what if the corruption gain would be doubled if the flagged player attacked a much lower lvl non-combat player? Since I have many years of experience with MMORPGs, I know by now that if somebody wants to kill some low lvl players, there is nothing to stop them if they just enjoy their lvl advantage... but some rough detterent would be nice.
Thanks for your opinon, I appreciate it :)
A: I actually hope they implement a system as you have mentioned to protect newly joined players!
& ty aswell ^^
This type of thing will be much harder in AoC because, as they mentioned in the Developer Q & A, was that the more RED you get the weaker you become. This means that in order to be very "evil" or RED you would have to balance killing GREEN players and dying (this was mentioned to be the easiest way to reset RED) and losing experience in order to keep from getting too far into the RED so that you don't lose your power. Sorry went a little off topic there but wanted to show an example of what this type of system can bring.
To get back to the system in AoC, they mentioned about the bounty hunter system which in Lineage2 was simply a different color name plate based on who you killed. If you only killed RED players you would become a "Hero" or BLUE player. This created a sorta a good vs evil aspect to the PK system. Because of the different rewards and consequences for being both BLUE and RED. To the point that even RED players would get a benefit to killing BLUE players. I'm sure in AoC it'll be much better and have actual rewards other than just taking the other players gear if it happens to drop.
I would also like to suggest that you can drop corruption from killing other red players. Should be a pretty significant reduction as both players, depending how deep in the red, will be weak stat wise. I also think that only players who dedicate themselves to hunting down red players should be given the honor of taking gear from the corpses. So at first maybe you would only be allowed to loot some coins and then as you turn it into a career for your character you would be able to take more and more loot. Dont think red players should be given the options to loot gear except from other high value red character or blue characters.
Being able to break into someones house inside a node just seems like a bit too much. Even killers need a safe space. Thought i dont think they should be allowed to stroll through town carefree. Maybe you can add a secret tunnel from your personal home to outside the node. An escape tunnel of sorts.
I am curious on exactly how much your stats will drop from being a red player. I really hope it isnt to the point where you are unable to function. Has anyone else had experience with this kinda of mechanic from other games? How much did it affect gameplay as a pker?
Any system that is set in place has to account for a lot of variables while altogether not completely limiting overworld pvp. There is no reason to have a bounty system if there will be no pks. Granted a few brave souls will still make their mains or alts pks in order to get constant pvp but depending on the importance of gear in both pvp and the ease of which it is acquired may break there system before it even gets into place.
Make a system to punish red characters be less about punishing player progression through monitary means, and more about through time gates. Go the way OLD UO had. Stat loss. When a red character is killed by a bounty hunter (only someone in a bounty hunter guild etc) have them get 33% skill loss for a certain time period. This time period is based on their total corruption. Have each level of corruption have a time gate for removal. 10 murder counts =Perma red (it was 5 in UO) and each murder count is equivalent to 4 hours of ingame time. Have the corruption counts decay if you do not assault a blue/green character. Once you assault someone timer restarts. Etc
This way there is a punishment for harming lowbies, there is a loss of time progression TIME NOT monetary, and there is a gain for bounty hunting (gold/silver, etc). Let players police other players not a grossly restrictive system that will, and i mean most definitely will be abused to grief far more than any pking would ever do in game.
Edit: in addition create a list of top pks with total counts (leader board for murder) that is available to be placed in members of bounty hunter guilds guild halls/pk guild halls etc. have total gold obtained by murdered bounty be placed on total counts. set a maximum time frame of PK stat loss % to be 40 hours. This will allow bounty hunters to dwindle numbers of pk guilds but still allow pk guilds to band together to fight.
Depending on ease of obtaining equipment and overall importance of equipment in pvp you may kill all overworld pvp by creating harsh punishments like dropping of equipment on death. Face it every game ever released in MMOs always has the same post before released in every forum asking for harsh punishments to protect from being pked and these fears are always unfounded.
By creating a system in which overworld pvp is greatly punished you reduce player interaction. If you are creating a bounty hunting system there is no point inplacing a harsh punishment because the two systems are antithetical. You cannot hunt what a harsh system already weeded out. Make punishments for corruption (murder counts) be time gated NOT MONETARY.
Old school UO still has the best system of any MMO ive played since for PVP/ and pking as a whole. Put the tools necessary to punish overall murder in the hands of players not a harsh Dev enforced system. 10 murder counts = perma red (this gives you some leeway to remove harassers without risking being hunted by bounty hunters, old school UO =5 counts). When a player character hits 10 they become perma red. When a perma red is killed by a bounty hunter they lose 33% of their skills in a system called stat loss ( this loss is not permanent). The time in which they lose these skills is based off of total murder counts (4-5 hours each count, maximum of 40 hours of ingame time) and have murder counts remove with time when characters are not assaulting blue or green player characters. If a murder is recently stat lossed hit them with a debuff that increases corruption reduction time while the debuff is active (4 hours per total count degradation) and those without the debuff 8 hours. This will allow players who accidentally go red to remove counts to return to blue status.
create a list of pks with higherst murder counts as a leaderboard. allowing war between pk, and anti/bounty hunter groups. in this the bounty hunters have the bonus of reducing the enemy count by 40 hours with each kill they make. This forces pks to become the hunted if they ever over pk populations. Have total gold obtained by bounty hunter be based off total counts making hunters target top PKs.
This system increases overall overworld PVP as a whole, creates drama between players and allows for the creation of guilds who will literally white knight to protect lowbies to obtain benefits for killing reds. All the while allowing red guilds to kill, and bring them pvp. WITHOUT literally leaving people to quit the game when their entire equipment load is dropped because of a connection drop.
Think about overall population and create systems to RETAIN PLAYERS NOT WEED THEM OUT, simply because you are afraid of being pked. Those fears are ALWAYS greatly unfounded.
I personally am not too fond of PKers, however, I don't believe they should only be punished. I see little to no gain for anyone to be a PKer in AoC (and please correct me if I missed something), but I think there should be.
I agree with you that the system should not weed PKs out, but so far the system is pretty balanced (as far as we know). When you look at the other MMORPGs, there is no loot when you kill another player (there are exceptions). Here, you get more loot the more you are corrupted. And - this is very important to not forget - you will get loot from the combatant players too. So basically, you can become red player and then kill only combatants, your stats won't fall for it and you get great loot from resources to actual equip. Furthermore, you will lose your corruption when somebody kills you (that’s what devs said so far). That’s why I made this post so we can discuss better ways how to balance this corruption system, because for me personally one death for losing corruption is pretty easy way to get rid of it when inconvenient. And I don't think that somebody here is afraid of being PKed. As far I’m concerned, I have no problem with solely assassin’s guild, I would like to see them in the game. As I said before, the role play would only thrive with these guilds and our movement in the world would be exiting. I just want this system to be fair, because we all know some players that will abuse this system and harass low players, who will lose their resources and equip if the PK has high corruption level. Then, the system will weed out the newcomers, not PKs.
We must look at this issue from all sides. Anyway, thank you for your replies, I hope somebody from devs will notice this discussion :)
I would like to Present an Idea towards Making the system a little more fair. In the idea of High level players PKing Low level players we do have the Bounty System. But that In itself could still not really solve the issue. So What i feel like could add to that would be to add a bit more Immersion to the Bounty Hunting system. It would make it all around pretty fair for people on both sides i feel like.
So we have a Red Player. Lets call him "Fons" to go along with this example we have 5 Nodes 3 of which are at stage three. and the other two at stage 5. Now lets say Fons went ahead and killed about 5 low levels in the Influence of Node 4 which is a stage 5 Node which is the highest as far as we have been told to this point. well Fons is taken down by 3 Players. One of which is a Bounty Hunter. The Other two are his Guildies. A good way to make it both fair and fun for both sides is to make it so that Bounty Hunter and his guildies/ friends have to take Fons to the City of Node 4 to stand trial. and He is put on Trial by Node 4's Goverment and put in jail for like 15 to 20 mins. But lets say Fons was wanted by Node 5 and was in the influence of Node 1 he would have to be taken by Foot Or Mount to Node 5. the Bounty Hunter and his friends/ guildies would have to fight off Mobs and Other Players. This could be the Red Players Friends or Other Bounty Hunters wanting a reward or just bragging rights. I think that Would make a great way to add a bit more Immersion if not some fun. Because if someone dies to a Red Player they may have the option to help Escort the guy/girl that killed them to jail.
This way though the bounty system could be abused it would help police people's interactions with one another and also give the people that want to a chance to see how high they can get their bounty without getting killed. Your corrupt players would have to stay out of towns and nodes and find other means to get what they needed from there and full loot pvp would allow them to make money for pvping and like I said if it's all crafted then it should be easy enough to replace and adds meaning to the pvp and adrenaline to the combat of oh crap I don't want to lose my stuff. If it's done right it won't be as big of a deal as people make it out to be and will give people with the more expensive gear a reason to band together in all their activities to protect each other and make for some interesting pvp opportunities in both directions that would add a thrill. Living in medieval times was a harsh rough environment and it would add some realism to that truth in the game world.
- If red players could reduce their corruption by being killed they could unequip their gear and ask a friend to kill them over and over.
- If they could kill other red players to reduce corruption it would be cool from a roleplay point of view (balancing good and evil) but could also be abused by a group of red players to kill non-combatants without fearing longterm consequences.
- A bounty system that places bounties and rewards automaticly without players being the ones paying the reward could also be abused as a money fountain.
Personally I like the idea of a PKer leaderboard or other permanent personal PK counter (only non-combatant or unprovoked low-level kill) that every player can look up. It creates a permanent social consequence. Some guilds may not like your past PKer history or some white knight player / guild takes it upon itself to hunt and kill those reds and some guilds or perhaps even city / node rulers may require it.
At the same time reds could pride themselves with a high kill count among other reds since that seems to be the only thing to gain by killing non-combatants.
My suggestion would be to not have a stat reduce but to increase the red duration permanently with every kill. For example your first kill turns you red for 1 hour and for every addition to your kill count that time would permanently increase up to the point where it is almost impossible to remove it.
Couple that with an option for city / node rulers to allow / disallow services like housing and merchants (or allow attack on sight by NPC guards and players) for reds it could create vastly different cities from a law and moral point of view.
One important thing would be to not allow that corruption / red counter to reduce while in a safe place like ones own home or logged out.
It would create content for those that want to hunt outlaws but also allow outlaws to have their own home / sociaty.
Another thing to keep in mind is how all of these decisions and consequences mean nothing if all a player has to do is create an alt for PK purpose while all the trade and other activities are done with the safety of a clean main character.
– If red players could reduce their corruption by being killed they could unequip their gear and ask a friend to kill them over and over.
– If they could kill other red players to reduce corruption it would be cool from a roleplay point of view (balancing good and evil) but could also be abused by a group of red players to kill non-combatants without fearing longterm consequences.
– A bounty system that places bounties and rewards automaticly without players being the ones paying the reward could also be abused as a money fountain.
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These were the exact things we did early on in Lineage2 when I started my hired assassins guild. Once we made more of a name for ourselves, we stopped doing this because being perma RED made it more fun and interesting. Rarely got attacked because people feared us, and the ones that usually could kill us didn't because they were our clients most the time lol.
All of your other ideas for the PK system all sound very good, some of which I saw in Runes of Magic and worked well (only reducing RED by time while not killing players and being outside any safe zone) I personally was a rogue and stayed afk logged in, in stealth, in remote areas for this purpose. But got to the point where I never would be able to log in long enough to get rid of the RED, when protecting yourself as a RED you end up more and more RED. Made it extremely fun to try questing or just doing your day to day stuff in the game.
From what I have read of alot of players who wants to PVP only when they wish too, reads as, I only want to pvp when I know I will win. The most simple solution to this would be PVE and PVP servers, the flagging system never seems to work as intended.
From what I have read of alot of players who wants to PVP only when they wish too, reads as, I only want to pvp when I know I will win. The most simple solution to this would be PVE and PVP servers, the flagging system never seems to work as intended.
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This... exactly this. The problem with a lot of games coming onto the market who place pvp or overworld pvp into their game is they try and cater to the crowd who look for "rewards" in pvp. This never ends well. A good sandbox will create events and drama between guilds and players and create long lasting content. In UO I can count hundreds of players that were on the opposing sides in guilds with complete opposite goals that would all gather together for duel nights or just fun pvp. This was created content with the goal of having fun. Not so with those who pvp only for the reward. That creates a completely different play style. The
"try hard" that is sadly becoming more and more common. People who simply cannot lose or wont take the risk to lose at all. I am all for punishment for unruly players etc. but the current corruption punishments depending on overall item importance may lead to a completely devoid world for overworld pvp. The same problem in multiple MMOs already on the market will be replicated.
But what if B stops playing with his character that killed A when the note is posted? Simple, make a taint system. As in when B is trying to stop playing with the character that killed A his other characters on his acc. get tainted. At a certain point the "debuff" will spread to other characters on the acc. ( so the collector just needs to kill any of B's characters) and it will affect all of his char's. BUT to get it away from them he still needs to play the "main" culprit.
And the BH quest/note itself get's the info as to who you should kill AND a update (every 1-3h) on where B is, just the general direction something on the lines of B was last seen in zone X.
IMO a system like that, that punishes your ability to PvP (just PvP not PvE) is a fair punishment for people like that, you dont need to lose items or exp or gold, you just become weak to the point where a player that is 10 levels below you can kill you.
Oh and as a precaution you can't put another bounty on the same player when he has the debuff so you cant just % abuse him. Plus there would have to be a minimum amount of gold for the debuff itself ( lets say 10% minimum) so you cant just ask a friend to put a 1% debuff on you and your safe for 10 in game hours.
And a little something, if player B would piss off more than 1 player then you can start a petition Bounty note. As in people sing in the note with lets say minimum 500g so for example 5 players can punish B with a bigger debuff than just 1 player putting 2k gold in. So if 5 players put 1k in the note , thats 5k and the debuff would be something of 60% dmg. off and 80 to 100 in game hours.
Mind you the debuff should also cap at certain point, like 90% but the timer at that point can even clock to 200h.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what the currency will be in the game. These are all fictional number with the mind that 2k gold or 5k gold is "a lot".
But what if B stops playing with his character that killed A when the note is posted? Simple, make a taint system. As in when B is trying to stop playing with the character that killed A his other characters on his acc. get tainted. At a certain point the “debuff” will spread to other characters on the acc. ( so the collector just needs to kill any of B’s characters) and it will affect all of his char’s. BUT to get it away from them he still needs to play the “main” culprit.
And the BH quest/note itself get’s the info as to who you should kill AND a update (every 1-3h) on where B is, just the general direction something on the lines of B was last seen in zone X.
IMO a system like that, that punishes your ability to PvP (just PvP not PvE) is a fair punishment for people like that, you dont need to lose items or exp or gold, you just become weak to the point where a player that is 10 levels below you can kill you.
Oh and as a precaution you can’t put another bounty on the same player when he has the debuff so you cant just % abuse him. Plus there would have to be a minimum amount of gold for the debuff itself ( lets say 10% minimum) so you cant just ask a friend to put a 1% debuff on you and your safe for 10 in game hours.
And a little something, if player B would piss off more than 1 player then you can start a petition Bounty note. As in people sing in the note with lets say minimum 500g so for example 5 players can punish B with a bigger debuff than just 1 player putting 2k gold in. So if 5 players put 1k in the note , thats 5k and the debuff would be something of 60% dmg. off and 80 to 100 in game hours.
Mind you the debuff should also cap at certain point, like 90% but the timer at that point can even clock to 200h.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what the currency will be in the game. These are all fictional number with the mind that 2k gold or 5k gold is “a lot”.
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So what your saying is you want to penalize world pvpers if someone gets upset that they died? You want to ruin the game for them with stacking penalties? Why would anyone even play a game with a system like that? Only advice I can give To people that would want this is if you don't want to pvp that bad then play a game that only has instances pvp or none at all. This game from all I have seen in videos and read has a lot of pvp focus and I doubt the Devs want to drive off the pvp community. I have no problem with bounties or corruption but if someone wants to collect said bounty they need to be good enough to kill the person with it on their head without an unfair debuff on that player
1. The gold amount needed for a BH would be A LOT ( 5k in the post i made is A LOT it's not something you can get for getting 2h of gameplay, thats like some solid couple of months of grinding/ doing stuff that gets you a profit. )
2. No debuff stacking, I mean sure there can be 3 quest for one guy but when 1 get completed the rest gets deleted ( and the money is return to the person/ people that posted the other 2).
3. What do you mean by world PvP here? PK other people 5 times in a row in a zone somewhere in the middle of nowhere? or sieges/arena or other PvP activities (that dont require running around zones and stabbing people in the back / low levels in "the world"). If the second then just put a inhibitor of some sort so the person going in a siege/arena or other PvP activities don't have the debuff (for the duration of whatever he is doing right now). The punishment would be only world pvp.
4. And to collect the bounty, yes! thats what i mean. Its not just " slap 5k and watch the magic" a player still needs to take the quest and kill the person then return with the kill to the "quest giver" and turn it in for the debuff to start working.
1. The gold amount needed for a BH would be A LOT ( 5k in the post i made is A LOT it’s not something you can get for getting 2h of gameplay, thats like some solid couple of months of grinding/ doing stuff that gets you a profit. )
2. No debuff stacking, I mean sure there can be 3 quest for one guy but when 1 get completed the rest gets deleted ( and the money is return to the person/ people that posted the other 2).
3. What do you mean by world PvP here? PK other people 5 times in a row in a zone somewhere in the middle of nowhere? or sieges/arena or other PvP activities (that dont require running around zones and stabbing people in the back / low levels in “the world”). If the second then just put a inhibitor of some sort so the person going in a siege/arena or other PvP activities don’t have the debuff (for the duration of whatever he is doing right now). The punishment would be only world pvp.
4. And to collect the bounty, yes! thats what i mean. Its not just ” slap 5k and watch the magic” a player still needs to take the quest and kill the person then return with the kill to the “quest giver” and turn it in for the debuff to start working.
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It's a sandbox all the pvp/sieges happen in the open world it's not instanced pvp. It's all going to happen in the zones of the world. How do you think the nodes are going to work? You can only have so many active and people are going to have houses and stuff in them. What do you think happens when it's time to kill it so another one can grow for that pve content?
If the bar is set so high for currency it wouldn't really work for new low level players at all.
1. The gold amount needed for a BH would be A LOT ( 5k in the post i made is A LOT it’s not something you can get for getting 2h of gameplay, thats like some solid couple of months of grinding/ doing stuff that gets you a profit. )
2. No debuff stacking, I mean sure there can be 3 quest for one guy but when 1 get completed the rest gets deleted ( and the money is return to the person/ people that posted the other 2).
3. What do you mean by world PvP here? PK other people 5 times in a row in a zone somewhere in the middle of nowhere? or sieges/arena or other PvP activities (that dont require running around zones and stabbing people in the back / low levels in “the world”). If the second then just put a inhibitor of some sort so the person going in a siege/arena or other PvP activities don’t have the debuff (for the duration of whatever he is doing right now). The punishment would be only world pvp.
4. And to collect the bounty, yes! thats what i mean. Its not just ” slap 5k and watch the magic” a player still needs to take the quest and kill the person then return with the kill to the “quest giver” and turn it in for the debuff to start working.
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This isn't a theme park it's a sandbox the pvp will happen in the zones and the world whether it's small, medium and large from 1v1 to GvG and castle/node sieges when it's time to destroy it and everyone's house that built one there. I wonder if the guild that controls it or the the new players there at the time and people that built those houses will fight back or want to put bounties on the people for doing a game mechanic that you want them to suffer damage reductions in pvp for before or after doesn't really matter still would be counter productive to what the game is designed to be.
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I really am interested to see how they pull it off. The node system seems really interesting just not sure how it can be safe when you have to destroy it to build up another one to open up new content. Low levels and new players should have some kind of area where they can get their bearings . They could maybe make a venerability window of when it could be attacked if that's how they are going to do it so people knew when it wasn't safe. It's a hard call some would argue for safe zones some would argue for none. The bottom line is it's not a sandbox unless it has open world pvp.
Black Desert turned into a theme park with world bosses and guild vs guild and instances pvp as an endgame with a very poor flagging system for world pvp with a bad penalty system if mistakes were made. There has to be a middle ground with the systems. If there is no penalty people will rav and dislike it if it's to much of one the same will be true.
<strong>What type of flagging system will be used for PvP in Ashes? Something completely open like Free-For-All, or a system limited to certain areas (like caravans and sieges), or maybe an incentivized factional opt-in system tied to established nodes, similar to Star Wars Galaxies’ TEF system?</strong>
<em>We are still developing our flagging system, but I can give you an overview of how it stands now. It is important to keep in mind, that players are not forced into PvP. If you want to influence the world around you through non-pvp methods, it is an equally viable option.
There are three states that a player can find themselves in: Non-Combatant (Green), Combatant (Purple), and Corrupt (Red). Everyone is a Non-Combatant by default. If a Non-Combatant attacks a Combatant or another non-combatant, then they become a Combatant for a period of time. Similarly, if a Non-Combatant enters a PVP zone (which includes things like Castles, City Sieges and Caravans) they are automatically flagged a Combatant while in the zone, and for a period of time after leaving that zone.
Players can kill Combatants without repercussions, and are encouraged to do so, since dying while a Combatant means you suffer reduced death penalties. Where this changes is when a Combatant kills a Non-Combatant. In this case, the Combatant is Corrupt, and acquires a Corruption Score (which is accrued based on a number of different parameters, including the level differential of their freshly slain victim). This Corruption Score can be worked off with effort through a few mechanics, but the primary means of getting rid of it is through death.
While a player is marked as Corrupt, they may be attacked by both Combatants and Non-Combatants. If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant. We also have some other ideas that we haven’t formalized yet that will allow players to participate in what we feel could be a fun cat-and-mouse part of the game. As an example, the location of these corrupt players will be displayed on the map, if you have the Bounty Hunter title, which can be obtained through a quest available to a citizen from a Military zoned, Stage 4 (Town) Node. These are systems that we’re still working on, but Corruption is something we want to provide explicit gameplay opportunities for.
In any case, all this comes to a head via death penalties. A Non-Combatant who dies suffers normal penalties, which includes experience debt, durability loss, as well as dropping a portion of carried raw materials (which can then be looted). A Combatant who dies suffers these same penalties, but at half the Non-Combatant rate. A character who has a Corruption Score on the other hand, suffers penalties at three times the rate of a Non-Combatant, and has a chance to drop *any* carried/equipped items based on their current Corruption Score.
The idea here is to disincentivizes those who wish to gank or grief others, while rewarding those who engage in consensual PVP. We don’t want Ashes to be a murder box!
Again, this is the briefest of overviews, and I’m sure this explanation raises as many questions as it answers. It really demands a more thorough explanation, which we’ll get into in a developer blog. Also, keep in mind that Ashes is continually a work in progress – though I’ve given a lot of specifics here, what survives play-testing is anyone’s guess!</em>
<strong>What type of flagging system will be used for PvP in Ashes? Something completely open like Free-For-All, or a system limited to certain areas (like caravans and sieges), or maybe an incentivized factional opt-in system tied to established nodes, similar to Star Wars Galaxies’ TEF system?</strong>
<em>We are still developing our flagging system, but I can give you an overview of how it stands now. It is important to keep in mind, that players are not forced into PvP. If you want to influence the world around you through non-pvp methods, it is an equally viable option.</em>
<em>
There are three states that a player can find themselves in: Non-Combatant (Green), Combatant (Purple), and Corrupt (Red). Everyone is a Non-Combatant by default. If a Non-Combatant attacks a Combatant or another non-combatant, then they become a Combatant for a period of time. Similarly, if a Non-Combatant enters a PVP zone (which includes things like Castles, City Sieges and Caravans) they are automatically flagged a Combatant while in the zone, and for a period of time after leaving that zone.
Players can kill Combatants without repercussions, and are encouraged to do so, since dying while a Combatant means you suffer reduced death penalties. Where this changes is when a Combatant kills a Non-Combatant. In this case, the Combatant is Corrupt, and acquires a Corruption Score (which is accrued based on a number of different parameters, including the level differential of their freshly slain victim). This Corruption Score can be worked off with effort through a few mechanics, but the primary means of getting rid of it is through death.
While a player is marked as Corrupt, they may be attacked by both Combatants and Non-Combatants. If a non-combatant attacks a corrupt player, the non-combatant will not flag as a combatant. We also have some other ideas that we haven’t formalized yet that will allow players to participate in what we feel could be a fun cat-and-mouse part of the game. As an example, the location of these corrupt players will be displayed on the map, if you have the Bounty Hunter title, which can be obtained through a quest available to a citizen from a Military zoned, Stage 4 (Town) Node. These are systems that we’re still working on, but Corruption is something we want to provide explicit gameplay opportunities for.
In any case, all this comes to a head via death penalties. A Non-Combatant who dies suffers normal penalties, which includes experience debt, durability loss, as well as dropping a portion of carried raw materials (which can then be looted). A Combatant who dies suffers these same penalties, but at half the Non-Combatant rate. A character who has a Corruption Score on the other hand, suffers penalties at three times the rate of a Non-Combatant, and has a chance to drop *any* carried/equipped items based on their current Corruption Score.
The idea here is to disincentivizes those who wish to gank or grief others, while rewarding those who engage in consensual PVP. We don’t want Ashes to be a murder box!
</em><em>Again, this is the briefest of overviews, and I’m sure this explanation raises as many questions as it answers. It really demands a more thorough explanation, which we’ll get into in a developer blog. Also, keep in mind that Ashes is continually a work in progress – though I’ve given a lot of specifics here, what survives play-testing is anyone’s guess!</em>
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Yes but all things at this point are subject to change with an official alpha not even out yet. With it being community funded if you get enough people complaining about wanting harsher penalties it could change. People also need to remember this is a sandbox and you will want to make friends and join a guild then with the corruption and friends that will take care of said people trying to grief you will actually be a content generator. Will be nice when people let us pvpers make them content that drops us some loot and protecting a guildie at the same time.