Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
You're examples of complaints are mutually exclusive. Either the penalty will be too harsh, thus pleasing/indifferent most PvE'ers or it will be too lenient thus pleasing or indifferent to most PvP'ers. Even if they somehow successfully target an extremely small keyhole to disappoint both to a high degree it would take minimal effort to move it to one side or the other and would be fixed in early stages.
Anyone here could come up with a penalty system that would bring griefing down to nearly zero while maintaining open PvP. Anything from instantly being debuffed to a level 1 equivalent and marked for everyone to see or just outright suspending the account for 12 hours. Extreme examples but obviously this wouldn't have any work arounds and would be huge deterrents.
And this is the details I want. To what degree will this penalty be utilized. Can someone kill 10 players before the penalties become a problem or just 1?
It isn't an adequate deterrent for people wanting to grief.
Steven thinks it's adequate because he doesn't play alts.
I think most people understand that the game wouldn't function as described if large scale PvP wasn't possible. Where you would need to bring a dozen or more friends to sack a town or hold. People are worried about possible toxic 'small scale' PvP which isn't even necessary for most of these 'living world' systems to function.
The penalty would have to be so harsh that people who want to troll would do it by trying to trick people into killing non-flagged players, not just killing players and then 'gaming' the penalty. That's the level of penalty most PvE'ers will require.
@ Stabby
I had thought that you were "out" and had said your GuhByes? Are you now planning to play?
Still, I think concerns over 'small scale' PvP adversely interfering with PvE activities are valid. Citing other games PvP systems that do not mesh well with PvE doesn't help matters. Having a developer lay out a timeline or walkthrough of what a griefer would experience would be extremely informative.
I think most people in this thread have a valid point that should be given careful consideration by the dev team. Regardless of what side of this conversation you're on it's going to effect you in a negative way. You may not realize it right now, but it's true. I don't think anyone is opposed to having a PvP "pillar" or mobile PvP battles around the caravans, including myself. But non-consensual combat, especially in the form of griefing, is unacceptable in an environment that's designed for fun. There are a million fixes to this problem but the dev team either underestimates the impact it will have or they just don't care. Either way, it's going to be a costly mistake.
I think there's one thing we can all agree on... this genre is almost dead and in desperate need for a game like this. AoC has the potential to get millions of customers. What they do once they have them is up to them.
First(for the 115th time) I believe that we should see their system in action BEFORE we decide that it is a failure.
Second, we will need to see how hardcore Intrepid is at policing "griefing" because obviously they do not want that in their game. I wouldn't just assume that ass-hats will be free to use tricks to get around the design intents.
Third, is much of this depends on what an individual considers "griefing". Am I being griefed if I'm killed at a gathering spot, go back, get killed again, repeat? IMO, NO.
Will there be a cross over, with gear, spells/abilities and the like.
It's all well and good being into PvE but should there be a server for it that would threaten the pillars that they base the game on.
(I state now, I personally am a PvP freak. but I will be taking economy as my focus in this MMO)
Will I be able to cross servers at any time if I want to PvE for a day or will I be stuck in a particular Realm?
If the hardcore PvP adventurers end up focusing on a handful of servers, we may end up with a defacto PvE server that PvE adventurers can gravitate to.
Whatever server has least instances of PvP combat.
And with the Stock Exchange analytics, it may be possible for us to determine that. We might even be able to set that up during beta - as we find people we like playing with.
If the hardcore PvP adventurers focus on a handful of server, that may allow the PvE adventurers to congregate on the server with the least amount of PvP combat. And with the Stock Exchange analytics, it should be possible for us to track which server has the least PvP combat.
This may even be something that can be planned for during beta, as we seek like-minded players for headstart/launch.
If we're able to use the Stock Exchange to determine which server has the least amount of PvP combat, it seems likely that you would be able to transfer servers. But, I would expect a time restriction for hopping back and forth that is at least the same limit as for changing citizenship.
The primary issue, I think, will be what happens to your homes. Would you be able to maintain citizenship and your freeholds on Server A while you have no citizenship on Server B? Or will you have to give up your citizenship on server A when you transfer your character to Server B? Might be easier to just have an alt on Server B.
However, I honestly don't think it will be an issue. For one, it's really way too early in the development of the game to be worrying about stuff like this. Steven and others have said they do not like ganking, and there's going to be extensive testing on these types of mechanics to make sure it's severely deterred. Secondly, I would think that ganking would become less of a thing the higher level a character gets, considering losing your items is a possibility. I know I wouldn't want to spend time getting new gear just to lose it because I wanted to go on a murder spree.
Btw, forgive me if these things have been said before, but this thread is long! I tried, but I started to feel like @Pkfyre up there.
Caravans are scheduled by players. Can caravans travel, rather than remain static.
Sieges are also scheduled by players. There is a prep phase of days or weeks.
Then there is a siege at that town/city for however long. Followed by days or weeks when declaring a siege is disabled.
If you're exploring, you have to rely on the corruption mechanic to deter players from attacking you. Which should be relatively easy if all you're doing is exploring. I can't see much meaningful conflict stemming from exploring - especially a solo character exploring. If all you're doing is exploring, you probably don't even have any raw materials to loot.
I agree that once you get to higher levels, the less likely you are to get ganked by random griefers. Well, unless you run into a group of zombie griefers... maybe.
I'm not sure what could possibly be in a "static PvE-only area".
A theatre for RP??
"Harassment" won't be a thing simply because once the Corruption status is attained, the Corrupted Player(s) will be hunted - their location will be displayed on the Map for a Bounty Quest.
I'm just concerned as to how "accurate" it be. Because if its just a vague "Proximity-of-the-area", then it might turn into a Game of Cat-&-Mouse .... just that they are multiple "Cats" ( : 3 )
In turn, those same "Cats" might try to attack one another too. Thus it turn into something ... rather Interesting. In other words, the activity within the MMO will be Bustling & Sporadic.- within both PvE & PVP..These events can lead to a "chain-reaction" of other Activities for Players to do.
In any case its something to look forward to - especially since this PvX Environment is being carefully crafted by Experience-Devs ^~^
You get positive faction, kill 4 non-flagged players before loot and buff penalties set in (so you only start hurting when you commit a 5th non-flagged player kill). Then you can grind mobs, get killed in ways that would lose exp or do a daily quest to wash away the negative rep.
So when they cite such a system as something to be copied my hopes plummet. This system IS in action. The devs have seen it, said they liked it, players can try it out right now and its terrible for anyone who want to focus on open world PvE.
As for the definition of griefing, from what Intrepid has said in the past its any time a player who isn't flagged for PvP gets PK'd.
Depends. When do people become corrupt and marked for bounty?
After 1 unflagged PK? Great.
After 5? Not good enough.
And yes I am assuming worst case scenarios in terms of player community because that will 100% to a significant portion of players. Roll a guy 5 times, log on to an alt, do it 5 more times. Or have a group taking turns while grinding out the local mob population thus removing corruption, if they model it after L2 as they have hinted.
Maybe they made a mistake citing Lineage 2 as a good flagging system but if we take them at their word they are talking about putting in a system that is demonstrably bad for open world PvE players. Its live and in action right now, playable by players and devs alike and it is terrible.
Possibly, but that's kinda Narrow-Minded to view it like that - remember when i said
Bustling & Sporadic ?
Who's to say that another Guild won't Secretly be Hunting them ? Heck, maybe someone else nearby ? Who's to say someone dug aTrap near them ? What if Someone Else ? Who's to say the Environment won't affect them in a Certain way ?
There are many Unknown Elements involving Open-World PvP. for this MMO. There are many Elements the Devs could implement.
I'm just really hoping that Environment will actually have a role in that.
( I've mentioned this in most of my posts - won't get in depth here )
And if not Environment-Interactions, then hopefully Unique Abilities that most MMOs don;t have - such as casting Hallucinations. : 3
But its just "what-ifs"
And as far as how fast corruption grows, I believe it will start with the first kill. How punishing that first kill will be? tbd
For one thing, it depends on how many zombie alts the griefer has. If they wish to gank multiple times quickly, simply have a horde of alt zombies. Simply log out once the first zombie is killed or even before the zombie is killed.
But, my corrupted zombie alts being killed by bounty hunters would be part of the fun of roleplaying zombies.
if your getting pked just gather support by politics allainces and ofc like in rl get some big sacks off $$ and pay people to fight for you.
then just raze the pkker guild city to the ground.
If players were marked for bounty on the first kill this could be quite entertaining, even for a PvE purest.
Regarding the first question: i think it was in one of the live streams that the devs stated that you will get a purple(?) flag when you attack a non-combatant. But on which level of this you gain a bounty is not stated yet; at least its not in my memory
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.