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Corruption System - Thoughts from a PK/Criminal player

Just saw DeathsProxy’s video on the Corruption system. Sounds good on paper. I suppose PKers will have to choose whether or not wearing rare gear is worth it, a concept I’m familiar with in other games. I’m also assuming that greens only drop resources? I suppose this is fine as well, as long as said resources are valuable. One thing that concerns me a bit is that there will undoubtedly be infighting among reds with a system like this… more than there might be in other games. Seems to me you would definitely have to be in a small, tightly knit clan if you were to start a guild with PK/thieving as the objective. I don’t see how one could form a large scale “pirate” guild and maintain any semblance of order… simply because the rewards for killing your own kind are much higher than killing greens/combatants. Regardless, I’m okay with this system for the most part as long as the playstyle is worth the risk, and if gear isn’t a huge deciding factor in PVP (IE, gear makes a HUGE difference in Black Desert or ArcheAge).

In other games, you can "get away with" using a certain tier of gear that is cost-effective if you were to lose it. Still sucks to lose said gear, but isn't as devastating as losing best-in-slot (hence my concern about PVP being <strong>heavily</strong> gear dependent).

The idea is for Red players to feel it if they die, but not outright quit the game because they lost a BiS piece that took months to get because BiS is required for PVP. BiS should only give you a slight edge in PVP.

If this game functions in that way, I think PK/Criminal roleplayers will be pleased here, and it should be enough of a deterrent to keep reds in check.

"If you can't afford to lose it, don't use it." needs to be a viable option here for old school PK/thief types to stick around.


Edit again: If corrupted players eventually become totally ineffective in PVP... why have the mechanic in the first place? Why not just make it a siege only game...? I don't follow the logic here. There are some people who play MMOs for the purpose of RPing a thief/bandit/pirate, I would personally much prefer a prison system to being entirely ineffective in combat... without more information, I can say that there is nearly zero reason for a PK type to play this.... guaranteeing eventual death and loss of items for what I'm assuming is minimal gain in resources (based on the severity of corruption) drives away a rather large, overlooked demographic. ArcheAge's prison system was one thing I thoroughly enjoyed about that game... I recommend going that route and making it much more difficult to escape. And if you <em>do</em> escape, <em>then</em> enable the Bounty Hunter tracking... and maybe implement the ineffectiveness IF and only IF you repeatedly gank the same person within a certain time period (say several times in an hour), and even then, perhaps only if that person is more than 3 levels below you, depending on gear/level scaling in this game.

It could <em>maybe</em> work out still depending on how gear works, and if the resource drops are incredibly valuable, but based on the system itself, it sounds like that is not the case... besides... for the white knights and Anti-PK types, where is the fun in hunting down a defenseless criminal? Not all of us want to gank lowbies anyway, there are honorable PK/bandit types. Perhaps have open PVP available at a certain level, similar to Black Desert, to prevent the asshat lowbie gankers from doing such, while still allowing the true PK/bandits to do their thing, or simply have open PVP require you to be within 5-10 levels of each other.

I also suppose this all depends upon just how many PKs it takes to reach total corruption/ineffectiveness, what the means to restore your corruption back to normal are other than dying, and how long it takes. If it works similarly to Black Desert's Karma system, this could all check out. However, if it <em>is</em> like Black Desert's karma system, the combat effectiveness penalty should be removed entirely.

Just my two cents. Honestly if the above is how the system works, I will most likely skip this title... as will a large chunk of UO, Eve Online, Darkfall, Mortal, and Shards players/veterans... there are more of us than you'd think.

Comments

  • First of all, that title sounds like a National Geographics program or something: "PKing - From the inside" ;) And just to get that out of the way, a bountyhunter questline and bountyhunter "profession" has been confirmed.

    Crafting, ressourse gathering and that sorta thing is the backbone of the economy, meaning the drops you get from greens are/could be quite valuable.

    I don't really see your concern on PvP being very gear oriented, so far nothing suggests this, from what I've seen/heard it seems quite alot like the opposite (IMO). And as regards to how you make a community of PK'ers work, I'm sure theres nothing stopping you from making a guild? Guild might even have a "don't kill your friends" system, but that remains to be seen :)

    Also it seems we have different views of PvP and PKing, you kinda mix the two in a wierd way. Naturally theres PvP in PKing, but I don't think it works the otherway around. PvP is kinda an act of shared fighting I guess I'd call it, and PKing is in my head more of a "murder/killing", you expect PvP when you go into PKing, but its probably gonna be very one sided (hence the PK). IMO their system to <em>prevent </em>PKing is fine, if it was full corpse loot noone would ever wander alone, gather alone, have their best gear on, basicly the game would stall (IMO).

    This is not to rant, but you seem very one sided... Like theres only gonna be PK'ers in the game, remember theres most likely gonna be a huuuuuge majority of player that don't PK, they might PvP and do sieges but they won't PK. It's fine to have a PK community, but it probably won't be the largest community, and if you make them too "strong" you'll lose a huge playerbase.

    EDIT: After seeing your welcome post I'm more calm, aknowledge the gankfest problem there, which would be my biggest concern with some of the system you suggest. I also remembered these fact you might find interesting:
    * To become corrupt you as a "combatant" must kill a "non-combatant", and if i remember you only need to kill one to become corrupt... And after that your "score" increases for every kill.
    * Full loot will only be if you have a very high corruption score, so its quite unlikely that it will become an everyday thing.
  • It's nice to see how much thought you've put into this. While I may not be a pk type player, and often hate getting pked outta nowhere (from BDO), I don't think AoC should be TOO harsh with pkers. I understand the system (for the most part), and I kind of agree with you.

    The problem is balancing unnecessary greifing with outright fun pvp and pking, imo. For example, if i'm on old school runescape (how weird right?) and i see a guy wearing a fairy rare/uncommon item in a pvp world/area, I might be inclined to kill him, or try to. But if i see a guy killing mobs with average gear in the same area/world, I don't really feel like he should be pked. There really isn't a benefit to me and the loss for the average geared player is probably much more than a geared player killed. A lot of this happens and players often set back far enough to get one's attention to the point they may even quit because of the amount of time it takes to rebuild themselves.

    I know there are a lot of things that could have been done from the average player, but new players or inexperienced MMOers don't really have the "idea" yet. Overall, It's still early and i'm sure AoC and many players will take the current system into account moving forward and i'm sure nothing is set in stone. (Just look at Dark and Light)...
  • [quote quote=3507]First of all, that title sounds like a National Geographics program or something: “PKing – From the inside” ? And just to get that out of the way, a bountyhunter questline and bountyhunter “profession” has been confirmed.

    Crafting, ressourse gathering and that sorta thing is the backbone of the economy, meaning the drops you get from greens are/could be quite valuable.

    I don’t really see your concern on PvP being very gear oriented, so far nothing suggests this, from what I’ve seen/heard it seems quite alot like the opposite (IMO). And as regards to how you make a community of PK’ers work, I’m sure theres nothing stopping you from making a guild? Guild might even have a “don’t kill your friends” system, but that remains to be seen ?

    Also it seems we have different views of PvP and PKing, you kinda mix the two in a wierd way. Naturally theres PvP in PKing, but I don’t think it works the otherway around. PvP is kinda an act of shared fighting I guess I’d call it, and PKing is in my head more of a “murder/killing”, you expect PvP when you go into PKing, but its probably gonna be very one sided (hence the PK). IMO their system to <em>prevent </em>PKing is fine, if it was full corpse loot noone would ever wander alone, gather alone, have their best gear on, basicly the game would stall (IMO).

    This is not to rant, but you seem very one sided… Like theres only gonna be PK’ers in the game, remember theres most likely gonna be a huuuuuge majority of player that don’t PK, they might PvP and do sieges but they won’t PK. It’s fine to have a PK community, but it probably won’t be the largest community, and if you make them too “strong” you’ll lose a huge playerbase.

    EDIT: After seeing your welcome post I’m more calm, aknowledge the gankfest problem there, which would be my biggest concern with some of the system you suggest. I also remembered these fact you might find interesting:
    * To become corrupt you as a “combatant” must kill a “non-combatant”, and if i remember you only need to kill one to become corrupt… And after that your “score” increases for every kill.
    * Full loot will only be if you have a very high corruption score, so its quite unlikely that it will become an everyday thing.

    [/quote]

    Yeah I see your concerns, I'm actually not advocating for full loot (well, if I'm going to be honest I'd love to see it, but realize the majority hates this oldschool hardcore mechanic). I understand that this game's primary focus seems to be castle building and sieges, which is perfectly fine. I suppose the reason I come off as mixing "PVP" and "PK" together is because I've played Eve Online and other similar games for many years.

    In Eve, for instance, yeah you have people who kill everything that moves, but many will only hit targets they deem "worth their time"... in this game, I'm assuming there would be little point in ganking a lowbie player, many of us find no fun in that anyway, and <em>that</em> act should be punished severely in a level based game IMO. Being an honorable red and an asshat lowbie ganker aren't quite the same thing.

    I fully recognize that this type of play is done by a minority these days in MMOs, however, there are quite a few players who are simply looking for a game that allows meaningful thief/bandit mechanics, as it really needs to be allowed for some of us old school UO/Eve players to consider the game a full sandbox.

    Something that makes UO private servers and Eve great is the rush of knowing that you could lose everything on you, so many of us would probably be okay with losing <em>all</em> of our gear rather than some (as I think was mentioned), though this depends upon the gearing system. Does best in slot take months or years to get? Weeks? This is a bit less of a concern of mine now that you say gear won't impact this game as much as say, Black Desert, but none the less.

    Also, I suppose the main reason I'm concerned is Black Desert's karma system sounds similar to their Corruption system. You can kill maybe 5 players before going negative, at which point your gear will start to drop in rank if you die, with the chance increasing as your karma drops. BDO revolves around a heavily RNG enchanting system, so dying in PVP as a red and your gear falling a level can end up costing you months of work. That system eventually got removed in the Korean version of Black Desert iirc, simply because even though they wanted a Red vs Blue dynamic, people weren't going red because it simply was not worth the risks, thus the whole system was pointless, at least with gear rank dropping. Reds there still drop more "trade items" than blues (this part is fine IMO). I am concerned about the same thing happening here.

    If the system here is indeed the same as BDOs... very easy to hit max negative karma... very hard to gain back... my concern is that the playstyle will, once again, be too punishing and no one will be a red player. The whole red vs blue dynamic in UO, Eve, and similar, really does add to a game IMO. There do need to be systems in place to prevent people from ganking low levels, but in a game with no full loot, the system sounds too punishing. I would agree more with the currently proposed systems if the game was full loot.

    Anyway, you put to rest some of my concerns, saying the resource items are valuable, etc.

    If they remove or tweak the combat effectiveness penalty (say keep it if you gank people with no chance), there is a hidden demographic of people waiting to jump ship from games like: Eve, UO, Darkfall, Mortal, Shadowbane, and some others. Not to mention a lot of Survival Game players (DayZ etc) actually are old Eve/UO veterans... simply because those games offer a similar rush. Again, not suggesting this game be full loot, but there is no recent "Real" MMO that is a TRUE sandbox that allows for meaningful bandit play. IMO it would help the game, not hurt it, if done right.

    In my opinion, unless they remove the combat effectiveness penalty, this game can't be called a full sandbox. Close, but with that system, it is not. ^_~

    For what it's worth, I just got up and haven't had my coffee...hehe... so if some of this is repetitive or hard to understand, my bad.
  • [quote quote=3518]It’s nice to see how much thought you’ve put into this. While I may not be a pk type player, and often hate getting pked outta nowhere (from BDO), I don’t think AoC should be TOO harsh with pkers. I understand the system (for the most part), and I kind of agree with you.

    The problem is balancing unnecessary greifing with outright fun pvp and pking, imo. For example, if i’m on old school runescape (how weird right?) and i see a guy wearing a fairy rare/uncommon item in a pvp world/area, I might be inclined to kill him, or try to. But if i see a guy killing mobs with average gear in the same area/world, I don’t really feel like he should be pked. There really isn’t a benefit to me and the loss for the average geared player is probably much more than a geared player killed. A lot of this happens and players often set back far enough to get one’s attention to the point they may even quit because of the amount of time it takes to rebuild themselves.

    I know there are a lot of things that could have been done from the average player, but new players or inexperienced MMOers don’t really have the “idea” yet. Overall, It’s still early and i’m sure AoC and many players will take the current system into account moving forward and i’m sure nothing is set in stone. (Just look at Dark and Light)…

    [/quote]

    Good points and I appreciate that you understand what I'm trying to convey. ^_^. Thanks for the comment!
  • I also suppose an alternative would be to have standard PVP servers, PVE servers, and a hardcore full loot server. This will depend on the game's overall success, as splitting the player base too much would be a bad thing. But if a balanced system cannot be implemented for Red vs Blue mechanics, it could be a last resort. There are old and current MMOs that do things like this.
  • @Eveslayer not gonna quote the whole thing :)

    It seems from what the devs said in an interview a month ago (look for it in "dev journal reactions" in a post I made), that the higher corruption score the more gear drops. So you won't get the effectiveness debuff, but more fighting between red-players (my guess). Since if you have a insanely high corruption score all of your gear might drop, where as being a "non-combatant" you only drop part or all of your resources.

    Regarding the "how long for BiS" question, right now my guess is that it will be quite short, and you will change gear quite often. They mentioned that they have a "meaningful durability system" somewhere, to me that means that items might get completely destroyed or at least need a crafter to repair it often. But thats just a guess ;)

    I can see what you mean about "honorable PKing", but if theres to few consiquences theres gonna be to many people that just kill left and right (IMO). Especially since they right now have the resources drop for non combatants, and resources will probably be valuable, so killing someone is likely to yield some result nomatter what (or at least you can't see if people are carrying materials).
  • Honestly, if that is how it will work I am 100% a-okay with it.

    Totally okay with it actually. Love it almost.

    One of Cryy's videos mentioned something about combat effectiveness penalties. Hence my concerns.

    It would still be nice if they gave us a hardcore full loot server at some point, but that will depend on the game's overall pop.

    It'd be nice though, even us hardcore PK/thief types don't necessarily want to do it all the time. Not sure if there are character limits or not, assuming not... As long as I can have a Red and a Blue (green) character, I'd be totally fine with it.
  • [quote quote=3502]Edit again: If corrupted players eventually become totally ineffective in PVP… why have the mechanic in the first place? Why not just make it a siege only game…? I don’t follow the logic here.[/quote]

    I'm with you on this, and this is currently the largest concern of mine for this game. A large scale villain seems almost impossible in this game, and even the small tight knit red groups will be hard to pull off because the system is so punitive. Being able to be seen by anyone with a Bounty Hunter title because you are red is perfectly fine, but making it so that you lose combat effectiveness (not to mention you will drop what you're carrying making it so you're probably not going to carry as high level gear as "non-combatants" anyway) just seems overly punitive. More importantly, if you lose your very ability to defend yourself is one of the worst feelings in games. I would liken it to FPS games when you get killed by a sniper from half the map away.

    Also, I think villains are good for a game like this (at least from what I understand with them wanting player driven content). If the only incentive to fight is over resources controlled at a certain city or on a caravan then there isn't much point in making the PvP so open in the first place. It's not bad to have certain mechanics which may create less incentive or more self reliance for "red" players, but removing their ability to defend themselves almost completely removes the potential for players in the game to develop a common "evil" enemy.
  • What I am concerned about is the inevitable creation of alt characters that are just there for the sake of pking someone. It happened in L2 and in AA with the pirates. You have players with enough time on their hands to level multiple toons and decide that they want one of them to be there solely to harass people, just for the sake of causing havoc. What ended up happening most of the times is that specific locations where camped by said pkers, killing people to interrupt their leveling or farming in L2, or in AA to interrupt trade routes. As long as the system balances this out, there shouldn't be an issue. The punishment of dropping gear as punishment was not an issue, as in L2 the pkers would just run around in low level gear, but retained the full range of their skills, inflicting the same amount of damage none-the-less. There should be at least some reduction in skill capabilities if someone decides to be a repeat offender of corrupting, or even decides to be a permanently corrupted character.
  • Never played l2, but I thought it was very gear dependent? How could they do same damage with low level gear? What would be the point in gear at all then for the hand.

    I don't necessarily mind the potential to drop good items as a red layer, but becoming combat ineffective just can't work. There wish be any reason at all to ever go into the world in a rpk mentality. Either that or players would just kill themselves every so often to reset their red status
  • I just think about PK guild formation..any who wants to be a criminal could find like-minded people. If it possible maybe someone could creat a PK direction guild, it would be wonderful)
  • If gear is the same difficulty in acquiring as UO this game will be amazing. If the reduction in combat effectiveness isnt a stat decrease but a higher risk of dropping equipment (1-1000 corruption score, each level 250,500,750 increase % of drop starting at 10,20,30 and 750-1000 being 30% for two slots) then it is a viable risk. The thing with most old school UO pks and players, if there is a risk of death and loss we are fine with it. The increase in corruption chance to drop equipment will also increase the chance of PvE centric crowds fighting back as well.

    Systems that create conflict are beneficial. Systems that protect subsets of the population and decrease interaction are a plague (trammel killed UO, it increased subscription numbers but has been stated by developers to just be people alting land for the majority of players.. it later saw subcription numbers drop until they platued at AoS.. then dropped again). With the system as it is now we may see a lot of old EVE and UO players, and the game will be better for it
  • So long as there is a level cap that can be attained by everyone in reasonable time and gear doesn't get out of hand, I'm not overly concerned about this game. PK's that go after low levels are only going to succeed for just so long, and going against like leveled people should come down to skill vs. skill. Losing to a PK at equal level and gear should help make you better at PvP.

    What I don't want to see is crap like BDO where some level 60 is just happily farming level 54 - 57's that have no chance of defending themselves or doing any damage. There is no skill involved in that game unless you are up against someone of equal gear and level.
  • In my mind, there is a big difference between PK'ing and ganking. I really like how the devs are planning for a good old school PK system that reduces ganking. The system as described bases the amount of corruption on the level difference as well as if the victim fights back or not; in effect, giving the victim the option to give the ganker more corruption. The bounty hunter aspect just adds to the fun and, I would think, something the red players will look forward to.
  • So I'm not sure if anyone who has responding in this thread is aware of the MMO Lineage II. The PK system they have setup for this game is strongly suggested by how this MMO did their system. Albeit, they have tweaked a few things to work for how their gear, their resources and their gameplay will work. It's the same basic concept and many people believe that this is one of the best PK systems to date. I am thrilled that they have this setup the way they do.

    It gives you the rush of thinking, "Is this risk I'm about to take worth it?", "Is there anyone around to punish me if I do PK this person?", "If I do PK them, are there mobs or a nearby area to reduce my corruption?". All these extra, small but detailed questions that need to be answered before just leaping in like a mongoloid and killing people furiously without penalty. The whole "Jail Time" concept from Archeage was okay but most people would just AFK it out and go do something for 45 minutes waiting for the jail time to expire. This was not a penalty but a slight break from the game.

    I played on a lot of private servers 10 years ago and man did the game suck up a lot of my time. Some servers I would be a white knight, other servers I would try to be more mischievous and mess with players more. I knew the risks and at times I did drop pieces of gear I regret but you know what, it was my choice and I have to live with the consequence of it. I then took the time to farm mats, get recipes and build a new weapon. It was all a great experience that I will never forget and no one else has done it the same way except AoC now. This may seem a bit "harsh" for many, but back in the day, harsh is what it was and it's only become more friendly to PKers as time has went on.


    Below is the latest changes and explanation of how Lineage II's PK system works and how you can redeem your Karma and how getting more Karma effects your PvPing ability.
    <img src="http://i.imgur.com/LbnxzRy.png" alt="Lineage II PK System" />
  • After reading through several threads/posts on this issue over the last few days I’ve become increasingly Leary of the B.S. I mean AoC wants PKing in the game so the arguments for or against are moot at this point.

    It’s a question of justice and for me I don’t believe in arbitrary measures of punishment. If you do “X” you will suffer condition “Y” it’s like attempting to instill some form of guilt or conscious. While I am no fan of Pker’s per se I am even lesser of a fan of imposition on liberty. If a player wants to PK in the game I don’t want to have mechanics that artificially deter them. What I want is a robust in game process by which I can equally “kill” their ability to do other things.

    Example 1. Trade embargos: the ability to impose AH embargos on players.
    Example 2. the ability to affect their ability to get into raids via extended raid locks.
    Example 3. the ability to poison, or taint the gear they get from me that will affect them negatively later on.

    If I can randomly be killed by another player while not engaging in, or desiring to engage in PVP I’m okay with that. However I want the ability to randomly engage THEM in an equally negative experience in game they can’t control. This Corruption system places the majority of control in the PKer’s hands as they govern when it can be applied based on their actions. They are getting the best of both worlds, they get their preferred game play and they can manage the negative aspects of that game play.

    Again, don’t misunderstand. I am not advocating against PK players, on the contrary I am advocating for a more robust system that allows more means by which to affect other people in the game that levels the playing field. Go ahead kill me take my stuff, but give me alternative means for justice. Otherwise it’s a glorified, perhaps refined arbitrary justice system that the person being killed has no way to affect.
  • [quote quote=3502]If corrupted players eventually become totally ineffective in PVP… why have the mechanic in the first place? Why not just make it a siege only game…? I don’t follow the logic here. There are some people who play MMOs for the purpose of RPing a thief/bandit/pirate, I would personally much prefer a prison system to being entirely ineffective in combat…[/quote]
    =_= thank you for saying this, I have been wondering the same thing... it would almost hurt less to have no pvp. (granted we still need to play the game to know for sure how bad things will be(or a lot more info))
  • [quote quote=3502]ArcheAge’s prison system was one thing I thoroughly enjoyed about that game… I recommend going that route and making it much more difficult to escape. And if you do escape, then enable the Bounty Hunter tracking… and maybe implement the ineffectiveness IF and only IF you repeatedly gank the same person within a certain time period (say several times in an hour), and even then, perhaps only if that person is more than 3 levels below you, depending on gear/level scaling in this game.[/quote]
    Also agree here, sitting in prison as odd as it sounds is a somewhat fond memory of Archeage lol.


    [quote quote=21353]In my mind, there is a big difference between PK’ing and ganking. I really like how the devs are planning for a good old school PK system that reduces ganking. The system as described bases the amount of corruption on the level difference as well as if the victim fights back or not; in effect, giving the victim the option to give the ganker more corruption. The bounty hunter aspect just adds to the fun and, I would think, something the red players will look forward to.

    [/quote]
    Imo lessen the current corruption punishments but make it so that only one corrupt player can attack a non-corrupt player at a time. Basically let corrupt players be ganked but don't let corrupt players gank normal players. This would heavily weaken ganking groups as they would become the ganked in most situations.
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