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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
Short answer. No.
You can reduce your exp debt through pve actions. So say you become corrupted. It has a value of 1000, with a cap at 10000 as an example. You are flagged red as long as you have a corruption positive value. The higher your corruption value goes the more it impacts your character. You kill two people back to back and your score is now 2000. You are now red and have incurred a small stat penalty making you less effective in combat (severity not known till testing at this point). You will stay corrupted until you are killed by another non-aligned player character. Someone finds you!! They kill you wiping 1000 points of corruption from you. Since your score was relatively low, they only get to loot for gathered materials, (probably the ones you took off your victims). You respawn at a random location, and look at your exp bar. You have incurred 4-6 times the exp debt on debt that a flagged pvp death or pve death incurs. Excessive exp debt also impacts your character. It can't delevel it, but it can sure as hell gimp it. You are still red. While you wait for the inevitable group to show up to kill you, you farm rabbits, because that is about what you can handle. Thus you begin working to clear the exp debt through pve actions. Bounty hunter has found you! Kills you and respawn. This time corruption counter is clear, but you have once again incurred 4-6 times the exp debt to work off.
I know it is long and drawn out, but that should explain the difference between being red and exp debt and how they will be cleared.
This does not matter. If this is a game to feature theft and resource steal, then you can not overly hard punish people that engage in a feature that game advertises.
Regardless of how unhappy people who got stolen from are. Of course people who lost resource they just farmed will be unhappy. If Intrepid wished players to not get stolen from they would go right away with PvE servers.
You claim that players get unhappy when stolen from and that this should be prevented. But stealing is a feature of this MMO. If you punish this overly hard, then whats the point? You may as well introduce PvE servers.
I believe the open world PvP could be used for so much more then just meaningless confrontations. Under the right circumstances gaining that corruption will be more then worth it, maybe not worth it for that materials you have won but for the story you tell through your actions.
Meaning is to take their resources, so you yourself help progress your own node, your own guild and yourself instead of that other player progression his own, and himself.
That IS meaningful confrontation.
Getting Loot isn't meaningful unless you count every monster I kill as meaningful combat.
It's a competition out there. Protect your friends and attack your competition. This IS meaningful conflict.
Non meaningful conflict would be if you kill someone just for the laughs and take nothing from him. This has no meaning.
If you attack for loot, it has meaning. You are not only helping yourself, but you are un-helping your competition.
Every combat that profits you is meaningful, so is your combat with mobs. Otherwise why you are fighting them if there would be no meaning, if you wouldn't get EXP, resources etc. So yes this is also meaningful combat.
I largely solo because I tend to explore and do solo activities (farm, craft, quest). But in a PK-friendly game where there is little consequences for murder, I would need to have 5-6 friends with me at all times, and it might not be a big deterrent if I meet another group of 5-6 hostile people.
I'm already hard to convince to go in raids with good resource incentives and promise of quick finish - solely because it's time being around lots of people (and at the mercy of them being stupid). This would simply make this game a bad fit for my playstyle. I don't mind doing group stuff sometimes, but this is making every single thing into group stuff.
Heck I thought FF14 was a bad fit largely because I felt forced to run weekly gear token dungeons, often with randoms - but I was still allowed and able to solo explore, solo gather, solo craft and solo quest, without a 5 player escort everywhere. Trying to schedule stuff with friends or a guild every time I do anything at all, would be a pain.
Don't get me wrong, if you run into an enemy guild scouting your node you should definitely kill him. But suddenly you murdering that person has meaning!!
There is a consequence for doing it. The consequence is high enough to be meaningful. The "Red" player suffers for killing someone who doesn't fight back and the one who doesn't fight back is punished for not fighting back by losing more loot. Apparently stat loss and possible drop are meaningful to the PK community, as well as larger loot loss to those who took the time to gather said loot.
This should encourage most players to fight back unless they are over powered. Then they have a choice to not fight back so the one who continues to attack and then kill them is flagged for picking on someone they overpower. Of course, this will not be the only reason someone doesn't fight back.
Still not sure what the point is in fighting/killing someone that won't fight back. Should be plenty of other players w/ loot that will fight back. Although, from reading multiple threads about this I am under the impression those that gather the most will be the least likely to fight back. But they would also lose more so...
Yes, the devs did say that killing someone to take their resources would be valid gameplay.
Given that the artisan stuff is limited, then no, not everyone is going to be able to gather, process or make things, especially not the right things all the time.
So because Gothix decides say to specialise in breeding ponies, he won't able to mine that iron.
Which leaves him with limited options, take or trade.
Trade would be a viable choice, but because he prefers fighting, and he's been told its going to be valid gameplay, he's put out about the corruption consequence.
I think that your point @Gothix hasn't been clear until now, for me at least, it's been coming across as if you just really, really want to stop people enjoying themselves and thrust your gameplay style on them because you just were a troll that way.
Understanding (if I've got it right) makes it a very valid point.
And my thoughts then would be, I really shouldn't worry if I were you.
So killing someone will turn you corrupted, actually how that corruption feels and it's effects on continued gameplay aren't going to be known yet. It may be that it's not until you've killed ten non flagged people that corruption really starts to bite, but yup, it could be after just one.
So you don't want to play with corruption anymore, but you also don't want to lose any of your gear? Take all of your gear off and walk rewards a tavern, the bounty hunters will take care of resetting that.
Normally I'd say stick it in a freehold chest, but given that you'll be surrounded by friends, just ask one of them to hold it all for you.
Yes, you'd be left with a death penalty, but your victim will have that too.
Alternatively, what's to stop you going around in pairs in the first place?
A: Kills someone. Takes their iron. Trades all of stuff to player B
B: Shoots A in the back. No corruption gain.
A: Respawns nekkid with death penalty, which unlike corruption, wears off over time.
B: Find A, trades all stuff back to A.
Rinse and repeat but with A choosing target.
The biggest losers I can see here are still those poor gatherers, but would playing like this resolve concerns you have @Gothix?
I think tbh, we all need a chance to get in pre launch to see how the balance goes.
I also tried to explain my motives a bit in this other thread:
Comment in other thread
Yes, my motives definitely aren't griefing and ganking. They are about meaningful conflict about resources.
I don't mind people having the ability to attack me, if I can unflag myself it would defeat the point of the game. I also don't mind losing a % of the stuff I have gathered in that area (as long as the amount is fair) but I hope there is some form of cooldown on losing items.
My one request to any person that claims to be into PvP, whilst you may have your own opinion, I like to have honour in my fights, I don't mind if you kill me once to see whether I'd fight back, but if I'm still not fighting back the 2nd time, I'm not in the mood, I've either not slept all night or had a bad day and just don't feel like it. To continue in that situation is completely disrespectful.
Whilst I'm not here to tell anyone how to play, this is a community we all share, would be better if we all got along and had fun.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fvr9KYT104i8WYppCup1v6SUTZFJTobVz8uRHDas4YM/edit
From what I read on there, you lose the standard amount of raw materials upon dying as a non-CB and as incentive towards mutual PvP you will lose less fighting back.
However my concern is, I don't mind losing more I get that system, but what is stopping that person from just coming back and killing a non-CB over and over, sure they may keep increasing in Corruption but under current information seems they'd get more reward if you didn't fight back.
Then the issue becomes, what if the other person just completely dwarfs you in gear? forget level disparity, even if players were of similar skill, if the other person just had plain better gear and won every time, you either don't attack and lose more, or they get no penalty and stuff from you anyway?
So will there be a multiplicative gain of Corruption killing the same individual within X amount of time? or as I said earlier, some form of cooldown on loot, so you could kill them again but you have to wait 5 minutes before loot is available giving the victim time to either run or contact friends/bounty hunter guild.
When someone kills you in regular pvp as a combatant or non-combatant you do not respawn at your body, you will be ported to a "shrine" or as described, set respawn points in the node. You could choose to run back right away, and if that person has not moved on, then they could kill you again. If you are red and you die due to pvp actions you will respond at a random location somewhere in the world, (not confirmed but most likely in the same node, would be hilarious if someone gets ported all the way across the map).
If the person is much higher level than you, there is an increasing penalty built into the corruption mechanic. Gear disparity has not been commented on yet. People who are doing such most likely will find themselves under attack by multiple people within a very short time. Every node is going to have a node wide chat that will allow people to call out for help from their alliance. People griefing others will be dealt with by the playerbase. Remember, those who are in your group, friends list, guild, and alliance can't attack you. So if you are near your home node, most likely there will be others that have a vested interest in helping you out with those pesky raiders. We do not have confirmation that citizenship confers alliance affiliation.
There is a multiplicative affect in stat reduction and combat effectiveness due to corruption level. Where many are getting confused it that they are equating exp debt with corruption level. You will have a separate corruption score that has effects on your character. As an example, killing one non-combatant nets you 1000 corruption. There is no real impact on your character beyond what will happen to your exp debt owed on death. You are now red and can be killed by anyone who wants to take you on without them having to worry about corruption. They will be able to loot ALL your materials, not just a percentage. You continue on your rampage and kill another non-combatant. Your corruption level is now 2000. A small debuff to your combat effectiveness is now applied. Your third kill it starts to get more restrictive. We won't know until testing how punitive and how quickly it stacks.
So now you are red with a 3k corruption value. A bounty hunter or group of people find you and strike you down like the dirty dog you are. You lose a percentage of your corruption, become lootable for ALL materials, and may drop equipped gear or it may even be destroyed on death. You respawn randomly somewhere, your corruption depending on the level may or may not be completely gone. You have now incurred an exp debt 4-6 times what a normal combatant death would have gained you. Exp debt has similar mechanics concerning stat reduction to combat effectiveness. A few deaths in pve most likely won't impact your performance due to exp debt. Jumping off a cliff 10 times in a row might. Will stop people from suiciding into mobs and bosses just to draw aggro onto others.
If your corruption value was so high that it didn't clear your red status on death. Rinse and repeat. You will be found and killed again, incurring yet even more exp debt. The harshness of these penalties will do a bang up job to deter ganking and griefing.
Unfortunately I don't have as much time as I'd like currently to keep up with all the information, so thank you for taking the time to explain it.
Death is frightening, and so is eternal life
Open world PvP is a thing and as long as you fight those willing to fight back there are no penalties besides usual death penalties.
Killing players that don't fight back is not PvP since only one player is fighting. Killing players that don't fight back is punishable (thus far) by stat loss and possible gear drop if corruption is gained.
PvP is not being punished, and it a few ways it's being highly encouraged.
The way I see things, AOC is going to work the same way as EVE Online highsec is. Meaningful conflict will be best demonstrated when two nodes are in a state of war against each other, and players from both sides get to kill and steal from each other without having to worry about corruption.
Being flagged when you attacking someone without "just cause" aka without a wardec, or being in a "declared PVP zone" like near a caravan will get you debuffs, but attacking someone who is party to a wardec should let you have a free for all until the other side surrenders or you do. That's the point of the idea revolving around meaningful conflict.
Killing players that don't fight back gives debuffs.
There is also a good reason to believe multiple deaths (PvP or PvE) could cause some debuffing, just not as much as corruption.
For example...
Green players upon any kind of PvP death receive 2x the penalty as a PVE death along with some raw materials.
Purple players upon any kind of PvP death would not receive exp debt but still drop the assigned amount of raw resources possible a random respawn in current node.
Red players upon reaching red status would receive a penalty 4x to 6x of exp debt to a PVE death, receive the stat modifiers, drop more resources and potentially drop or destroy gear.
The system remains nearly identical to the current design and encourages both parties to remain purple. However remaining green now has a deterrent comparable to that of going red without forcing people who just don't feel like it into PvP combat.
I would strongly encourage IS to implement a small stat modifier for any character holding exp debt. Corruption being the exception having a higher modifier and of course not requiring exp debt.
When you go to work do you go in bands of 10 people? When you go to the grocery store? Maybe when you go buy a game or a shovel? Because if it feels that way in a game, this isn't normal.
I like MMOs because they have enormous content, they allow progression longer than 30 hours worth before being done, they are constantly updated, and they allow social stuff without being local-server-multiplayer (which I play zero of), like to buy, sell, chat, observe, share moments.
Not everything involves raiding or wanting to kill other players.