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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.
Corruption discussion, Green aren't innocent !
Hello everyone, i was reading some topics about corruption and i would like to suggest some ideas/workaround for this mechanics.
I want to draw your attention to a game named Albion Online. It's a sandbox mmo with open world pvp / ganking / zerging with a Karma/Reputation system and FULL LOOT PVP. They have iterated the system many times and in my opinion found a good balance. Let me give you a quick explanation on how it works in Albion Online.
First of all the game has 2 different big island, one is Royal continent and the other is called Black Zones (equal sized, maybe Black Zone a bit bigger). In the Royal continent there are 6 main cities in wich there are independant Auction house (In black zones there are none). 5 of these cities are open to people with a Reputation superior to -1000 (everytime you kill someone in the Royal continent you lose about 200 to 1000 depending of their Reputation). The Reputation decrease work the same way as Ashes, meaning if you kill someone who is flagged as PVP you won't lose any reputation, if you kill an "inocent" you'll lose some. Black zones are reputation free, meaning that you don't lose reputation by killling anyone since everybody is flagged as soon as they go in them. One of the 6 cities in the Royal continent is open to everybody meaning PK have still access to one Auction house in wich prices are different (gear is cheaper since there are a lot of PK getting gear on people but ressources are more expensive). So you earn Reputation by killing mobs or gathering in the royal continent (about 1 by mobs and 1 by chopping a tree etc).
That system is balanced and there are no abusing PK and i'll explain why. Even if someone with the max reputation (20 000) flag as PK and HIT someone, he will not be able to unflag during 15min and will not be able to go in ANY CITIES and will basicly be hunted by anyone who see him coz u'll be able to kill him even if u are "green" and get all his gear and inventory. So it allows casual PK (meaning if you want to kill a World boss and another team shows up being green, you can flag and fight them to get that boss. Or maybe if you are planing on a Siege you can kill scout before arriving to PVP areas in wich everybody is flagged no matter what). For the "PK as a lifestyle" (meaning they have less than -1000) they'll be hunted as soon as they are in the Royal continent. And this is very punitive because you'll be hunted. to get back to a safe level of reputation (and be able to unflag) you'll have to take the risk of being killed while grinding/gathering for a verry long time. (Getting like 1000 rep take about 2 hours for the fastest so if you are at -10 000 i let you imagine)
The good things about this system is that basicly you feel thrill ! And imo that's an important part of sandbox open pvp games. As a lot of people have been saying in some threads, if you want to kill a scout or defend your gathering/farming spot you are basicly punished until you die and you might lose gear while you can't get some on other player. I mean why it even exists (i mean killing green) with such a punishement it doesn't realy makes sense. If it exists that means dev want it to be a part of the game otherwise this wouldn't exists. I find the reputation system of Albion realy balanced in a way that it allows casual PK. A good workaround for Ashes system in my opinion would to remove the gear drop (green doesn't drop gear so it's unfaire if RED do) but increase repair cost (from 10% to 30% for example) same for the inventory drop (from 30% to 100% for example) plus the impossibility to go back to a (or some ?) city/node or trade with anyone who is not corrupted aswell (to prevent banking gathering materials/inventory they looted while pvp) and finaly let them get rid of corruption by fighting world corruption (mobs) or by contributing to a node (gathering). In the lore it would make sense that if you fight corruption you can get rid of yours. Here in my opinion we got a high risk high reward. Because if you kill someone you'll take the risk of losing all you gathered defending your spot and if you manage to survive while being RED/corrupted for a while grinding and not hitting anyone else you would have make profit overall. If you are abusing in PK you'll end up dying and losing all the profit and still be corrupted after that so might lose what you looted/gathered again and again. Huge penalty for abusing and high risk high reward for casual PK. Keeping the exp penalty seems a good idea too same for the corruption loss when you die. Having a system of "Holyness" and if you go below 0 you are unable to unflag, and if you got more than 0 (after killing a green) it keeps a 15min (or 20 / 30min) flag, refreshing everytime you hit a green (or purple idk), seems to be a good idea in my opinion.
This idea is not a perfect idea and can still be improved but can be a better way of handling green PK in the world and make it happen sometimes. So green people can't abuse people who try to participate to event. I think about green people scouting for a caravan and staying in a group of thiefs to know how much they are and everything. From what i understood caravans can be stopped by player so waiting for friend before going into that choke point or embush or w/e. Green people are sometimes not innocent and can interact in PvP event in many ways. You have to find a way to prevent from abusing that green status.
Sorry for my englado and the long post. I hope it will give you some ideas
I want to draw your attention to a game named Albion Online. It's a sandbox mmo with open world pvp / ganking / zerging with a Karma/Reputation system and FULL LOOT PVP. They have iterated the system many times and in my opinion found a good balance. Let me give you a quick explanation on how it works in Albion Online.
First of all the game has 2 different big island, one is Royal continent and the other is called Black Zones (equal sized, maybe Black Zone a bit bigger). In the Royal continent there are 6 main cities in wich there are independant Auction house (In black zones there are none). 5 of these cities are open to people with a Reputation superior to -1000 (everytime you kill someone in the Royal continent you lose about 200 to 1000 depending of their Reputation). The Reputation decrease work the same way as Ashes, meaning if you kill someone who is flagged as PVP you won't lose any reputation, if you kill an "inocent" you'll lose some. Black zones are reputation free, meaning that you don't lose reputation by killling anyone since everybody is flagged as soon as they go in them. One of the 6 cities in the Royal continent is open to everybody meaning PK have still access to one Auction house in wich prices are different (gear is cheaper since there are a lot of PK getting gear on people but ressources are more expensive). So you earn Reputation by killing mobs or gathering in the royal continent (about 1 by mobs and 1 by chopping a tree etc).
That system is balanced and there are no abusing PK and i'll explain why. Even if someone with the max reputation (20 000) flag as PK and HIT someone, he will not be able to unflag during 15min and will not be able to go in ANY CITIES and will basicly be hunted by anyone who see him coz u'll be able to kill him even if u are "green" and get all his gear and inventory. So it allows casual PK (meaning if you want to kill a World boss and another team shows up being green, you can flag and fight them to get that boss. Or maybe if you are planing on a Siege you can kill scout before arriving to PVP areas in wich everybody is flagged no matter what). For the "PK as a lifestyle" (meaning they have less than -1000) they'll be hunted as soon as they are in the Royal continent. And this is very punitive because you'll be hunted. to get back to a safe level of reputation (and be able to unflag) you'll have to take the risk of being killed while grinding/gathering for a verry long time. (Getting like 1000 rep take about 2 hours for the fastest so if you are at -10 000 i let you imagine)
The good things about this system is that basicly you feel thrill ! And imo that's an important part of sandbox open pvp games. As a lot of people have been saying in some threads, if you want to kill a scout or defend your gathering/farming spot you are basicly punished until you die and you might lose gear while you can't get some on other player. I mean why it even exists (i mean killing green) with such a punishement it doesn't realy makes sense. If it exists that means dev want it to be a part of the game otherwise this wouldn't exists. I find the reputation system of Albion realy balanced in a way that it allows casual PK. A good workaround for Ashes system in my opinion would to remove the gear drop (green doesn't drop gear so it's unfaire if RED do) but increase repair cost (from 10% to 30% for example) same for the inventory drop (from 30% to 100% for example) plus the impossibility to go back to a (or some ?) city/node or trade with anyone who is not corrupted aswell (to prevent banking gathering materials/inventory they looted while pvp) and finaly let them get rid of corruption by fighting world corruption (mobs) or by contributing to a node (gathering). In the lore it would make sense that if you fight corruption you can get rid of yours. Here in my opinion we got a high risk high reward. Because if you kill someone you'll take the risk of losing all you gathered defending your spot and if you manage to survive while being RED/corrupted for a while grinding and not hitting anyone else you would have make profit overall. If you are abusing in PK you'll end up dying and losing all the profit and still be corrupted after that so might lose what you looted/gathered again and again. Huge penalty for abusing and high risk high reward for casual PK. Keeping the exp penalty seems a good idea too same for the corruption loss when you die. Having a system of "Holyness" and if you go below 0 you are unable to unflag, and if you got more than 0 (after killing a green) it keeps a 15min (or 20 / 30min) flag, refreshing everytime you hit a green (or purple idk), seems to be a good idea in my opinion.
This idea is not a perfect idea and can still be improved but can be a better way of handling green PK in the world and make it happen sometimes. So green people can't abuse people who try to participate to event. I think about green people scouting for a caravan and staying in a group of thiefs to know how much they are and everything. From what i understood caravans can be stopped by player so waiting for friend before going into that choke point or embush or w/e. Green people are sometimes not innocent and can interact in PvP event in many ways. You have to find a way to prevent from abusing that green status.
Sorry for my englado and the long post. I hope it will give you some ideas
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Comments
I used to abuse the shit out of the PvP system in that game because so did everyone else. The Black Zones, or full PvP zones are dead. No one goes there except with 30 friends to gank the one gatherer in each zone who never ventures more than 10-20yards from his guild's safe zone.
They broke yellow and red zones with all the restrictions making PvP less accessable.
I'd prefer they not adopt systems from DOA games that are designed to reward Zerg ganking tactics.
I was more talking about the Red/Yellow-zones mechanics, in wich you are being punished when you kill "green" people. As you said those restrictions make PVP less accessable but there are still people doing it for the reason i explained in the openning post (prevent scouting / keep a dungeon or worldboss for your group / good gathering spot).
Edit: While in my opinion the current system will be punishing too much people who kill greens. Or protect greens too much. the way you want.
Am totally supporting the "not every green is innocent" thingy.
More old games mentioned, more possible solutions to be found, each passed trial of time.
Some examples: lineage2 - 5 safe PK, Black Desert - gaining positive karma beforehand, losing it in pvp, with negative karma being "corrupted" in terms of AoC, above mentioned AO, maybe someone will find anything to take from faction games... But no way it to be as in Perfect World, where you have consumable items totally neglecting death penalties.
"Hey man, interesting post as a player who played a lot (small group/solo PVP) I quit recently. I really enjoyed the game and have followed it for a real long time. I just don't see the game going anywhere good by only promoting people to group up in the largest blue donut possible and the world is empty unless you run into these massive groups. I understand that the game is an MMO but to have nothing to incline individual players to log in and go out in the world for themselves and it makes the world feels extremely empty.
Other games offer things to get players out in the world missions/quests/faction rep any real in-depth mechanic would work really, which for some reason you guys totally disregard. Its really stale to ask a players to log in to fame farm, Resource farm, or PVP. Which guess what as people who get tired of farming resources for "nothing" or the crazy fame farmers die of boredom and stop logging in to grind for shitty percentage gains, you get less and less interaction and PVP."
https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/77897-Player-Population/
The game is dying on the PvP front because of the changes they made in beta to Red/Yellow zones which took away any incentive other than trolling potential, for people to PvP there.
I'm not saying the current system for Ashes is perfect, Im saying please don't do what Albion is doing because it is very anti open world, small group PvP and very pro Zerg and pro safe zone abuse.
I'm in favor of letting Intrepid's' system speak for itself through testing first before trying to make any assumption about it.
Start a thread with references to game that has nothing to do with what Ashes is and in almost all cases either closed down or is in decline.
Push for "I would be fine if this one small change was made." and of course that one change would invalidate the whole purpose of the mechanic.
Attack anyone who points out how they are wrong.
Realize they are outnumbered and start calling people carebears and snowflakes.
Threaten to quit and take their "massive amount of friends" with them.
Wait a moment and start a new thread.
Am i doing any of those things ?
I am not against the corruption system in any way, i'm just thinking that it had a lot of cons. I'm for a more in depth corruption system that prevent people abusing any gamestyle. I don't want any change to be made i just want to discuss about it. If we can bring some idea by discussing about that system and if they manage to improve it for every player it would be great. I don't want to change how they see their game in any ways.
I'll not threaten to quit ayway, the games hasn't even started yet x). And the corruption system will have changed since the release anyway, like almost everything in the game. It would be strange if not, that's the point of doing 1 year of Alpha and 1 of Beta.
And by the way i don't you know what Meta means becaus i don't think what you describe is the Most Efficient Tactic Available
The post you quoted is telling about BlackZones which are controlled by huge Alliances with 5k people in them so yes they are always roaming as 20people+ and that's not really what i'm interested in as i said earlier.
I don't think you read my post entierly or maybe misunderstood what i said (maybe because of my bad englado). Don't focus on my explanation about Albion Online system wich i don't suggest to copy entierly but i'm in favor to be inspired of a part of it.
Ashes of Creation is not an open world pvp like Albion online, it's more oriented around PvP EVENT like caravans, siege and so on. The corruption system speaks of itself and it's not bad, i like the way the game is orginizing pvp. I don't want to get killed by someone while going out of a city doing a quest like "Kill 5 wolfs" and that's what this system want to protect. I want to fight with people who want to fight too and not kill random innocent.
The thing is that the greens can interact in PvP event and are pretty much untouchable. How would you prevent that kind of behavior with the current system ?
I'm not asking to you since you don't want to make any assumption about the system but at the community/dev who cares about the gameplay experience of every playstyle. The only answer i was able to find was to casualy be able to kill a green without canceling my all embush on a caravan.
Anyway i'm pretty much agree with you : Don't copy Albion please. Maybe i should not have described how Albion Online is working
I'm open to critisim and ideas of anykind.
Oh man nice one haha. Did you do that by yourself ?
I'm also noting you walking back on your original post. Just wanted to ask what changed? Why if you don't see a problem are you suggesting a radical change?
My opinion is not fixed at all i just want to discuss about how we can prevent some of the abusing behavior in both ways. There isn't a perfect answer yet and i want to get closer to that.
The problem i'm seing is a potential "green abuse" system. I'm bringing some ideas so that people would be able to kill some green without being automaticly corrupted and having to die / being mark on a map / having their stats reduced, because it would, for example, cancel an embush on a caravan. I don't want the things to be like Albion in wich you said it yourself encourage Zerg/Bus mecanics on soloplayers, killing every single people randomly walking on the map.
I just think that the current corruption system may compromise other wonderfull aspect of the game and i want to be able to steal a caravan ! haha. I know people are clever and if i had to do a caravan with the current system i will 100% send a green naked dude scouting for embush, examining every choke point (maybe on a second account so i can defend the caravan with my main aswell). So i'll be able to see their group, their archetypes and prepare a counter strategy, like stopping the caravan and waiting for more friend to defend it or w/e. If they kill my green alt they'll be corrupted and other random people walking will try to make group to kill them, they'll have lower stats and everything. With that system it will 100% happen since i'll do it myself
Well i can kill that purple dude so he won't get informations anymore. I can move without being folowed. If new people come into my group they would not know. They will not have a live feedback of all actions we are currently doing.
Purple scout is totaly fair to me, a high lvl rogue scouting me while being invis is a part of the game, i can respond to that with some utility skills that reveal stealth and kill him preventing him to scout anymore and they got their infos, both party have counterplay = fair.
A lvl 2 green buddy following me that i can't kill otherwise i'll get a HUGE amount of corruption doesn't seem fair to me.
Ps. What's with these bars under quotes now?
So the more lvl difference there is the more corrupted you will be. So "huge" doesn't seems silly according to their statements.
Edit :
“Corrupt”
- If a player kills another, without them fighting back, they become “corrupt” and gain a certain corruption score
- More corruption depending on things like level disparity
Source : http://aocwiki.net/PvPAny game, that has pvp(regarding current topic) aspect has connection to AoC. Simply because it has proven (good or bad) PvP system, what's wrong with giving examples on the forum, that is made for discussion of project that is being developed? Yes, Steven stated their system has some mechanics, but he never has stated that nothing will be ever revised.
Current flagging system has obvious "green" exploits. For example, if someone attacks you in wilderness, you'd rather die, drop a little, make him "red", return, kill him, take much more loot, than you could get in "purple" fight. This is logical, no sense to do otherwise, thus is will be used, if pvp would exist in open world, which this system is designed for.
It's up to devs, whether to change something or not, but nothing can stop us from giving ideas.
Well then it is something that needs testing and adjusting to get the results the devs are trying to get, which is why there is alphas and beta tests... which is something I will be participating in and this subject is going to be one of my main focuses
Your worried about it working as intended
I am worried about it working as intended as well. So let's work together in figuring out the details in testing
Let's see if we can get it to work before we throw it out
If it works like that i can only imagine people staying in starting area waiting for lvl 1 people to start their first quest like "Kill 5 wolfs" and wait for them to start any pve combat to kill them. I would realy dislike that kind of behavior it would ruin my gaming experience tbh. Even though those pk will become purple and then might get killed by another HL purple dude, you have to rely on having "good" people defending new player.
@JikanMcA
I'm not worried about people who are defending the caravan because as you said there would be an "auto-flag zone" around and that's a realy good idea. I am more worried about the other way around.
People that defend the caravan sending Greens lvl 1-10 or w/e to spy potential thiefs outside of this PvP zone. I'm agree that we do'nt know yet all the debuff and everything, but from what i know, as soon as you kill an innocent people you get corrupted.
“Corrupt”
- If a player kills another, without them fighting back, they become “corrupt” and gain a certain corruption score
- More corruption depending on things like level disparity
and then5. Location is revealed to bounty hunters when corrupt.
source : http://aocwiki.net/PvP
So if i had to organize a carvan i'll definitly send a low lvl green myself (on a second account/computer so i can still play my main to defend the caravan letting my spy afk while fighting for example). I'll be able to either follow the thief and see what they are doing, all their classes and maybe even gear, and if they kill my spy i'll be able to follow them on the map (since one of the defender or maybe myself would be a bounty hunter) and get them a stat debuff. So i would get an advantage using that kind of mecanics and i don't realy want greens to be a part of that kind of event.
Even if there are mobs and i can't send a lvl 10 i would probably send a lvl 40 or maybe even max lvl spy the result would be about the same.
The corruption system is really good and i want to keep things that way. I just proposed a way to prevent that kind of things by having the ability to kill some green without being corrupt (or without suffer too much about the consequences) by having a mecanic like storing a little bit of positive "karma", that would allow casual green killing (to prevent kind of abuse a stated earlier) but not abusing innocent people and ruining and their gaming experience.
"...I would get an advantage using that kind of mechanics..." -Yes, how you described what you are doing would clearly give you an advantage over anyone not using a primary and alt at the same time. That kind of advantage has nothing to do with being green. It's just an advantage that you happen to be using w/ a green avatar.
As for the "not all green's are innocent" comment. Sure, I guess some "greens"will likely be guilty of trying to use the system. There will be some PvP'ers that prefer PK that will abuse the system the first chance they get too.
Nobody HAS to be a corrupted player. It is an option.
It is 100% your choice to decide after starting a fight against someone that doesn't fight back if it is worth it to you to be corrupted.
Kill the green spy, don't kill the green spy. 100% your choice.
As of right now the corruption system doesn't seem to take into account spies. That can be worked out in alpha/beta test. Although stat penalty and possible loss of gear and keeping corruption until death seem to deter PK but not PvP . So, to me, sounds like IS nailed it.
The system is structured towards meaningful PvP.
If you think killing a green is meaningful, then so is the corruption you gained for it. Oh, you have to die to loose corruption? Odd, I guess the green had to die to give it to you so all is well. So in that case I guess that green wasn't innocent.
You will be hunted by other players? Odd, apparently so was the green you killed.
Besides a Castle, Freehold or inside city housing nobody in Ashes will "own" land, i.e. this really interesting mining resource that everyone is thinking about risking corruption over.
Note: Castle's owned by guilds are military nodes. There will be resource mining in those nodes. Go there for random PvP versus miners. They'll likely fight back, maybe even calling their buddies since some PvP'ers think "greens" should use friends.
That said.. I don't want to be punished so severely just because I PVP. I would like to have sufficient PVP without ganking.
Some things I have seen that sort of worked (I know everyone will dislike these for one reason or another but I will put it out there anyway) are:
1. * Fame +/- for killing up or down
2. Dropping items +/- for killing up or down
3. Re-spawning timers along with re-spawn areas depending on PVP attacks (letting those that died to PVP quickly start their work over again while forcing the PVP'er to take the long route).
4. PVPing only within a level difference +/- with lower levels being able to attack upwards (not really a big fan of this as it can be abused but... it may prevent ganking newbies)
5. Recent kill list gives immunity or no rewards (unless they attack first). This can be abused often but does the most to prevent ganking.
6. Spreading or diluting rewards for PVP if it is unbalanced (group v solo) etc.
*often abused using alts or friends accounts or just friends.
My biggest concerns and what will influence how often or how long I play the game are:
1. Dead PVP with dead zones or zones with no reason to go to them.
2. Preset areas for PVP (same as PVP by permission)
3. PVP becomes too complicated and is an afterthought for the developers as too resource consuming or expensive.
4. PVP by permission with no open world PVP except sieges or arenas.
5. Being forced to PVE 40 hrs/week in order to be competitive in PVP. I am an adult and have a job, family, friends and hobbies other than sitting at a PC.
6. PVP system so terrible to those who mainly PVE they leave the game. I would rather they learn to enjoy PVP and kill me.
7. Fast travel directly from point to point.
IMO players who PVP a lot are very skilled and work very hard at improving their character. The best times I have ever had are when I am at my keyboard screaming and laughing during or after a great PVP fight. I does not matter if I lost or won, only that I had fun. I enjoy group PVP as well as solo PVP. Gankers show no true skill and I despise that but there are always those that have no empathy and will do it. Kind of like posting nasty messages toward someone because they are anonymous yet they would never do the same thing face to face.
I do hope they have the ability to duel (with no lose or gain), although I dislike it most of the time, only to test out builds and equipment and learn about PVP.
There is also caravans.
"Being forced to PVE 40 hrs/week in order to be competitive in PVP. I am an adult and have a job, family, friends and hobbies other than sitting at a PC."
While it might not be super gear dependant, I'm pretty sure that at equal lv, gear will matter. And while you don't need nowhere near 40 hours a week to get gear, you won't be out-of-the-box top tier gear. You could get gear in other ways than pve (like crafting), but they'll likely involve some pve too.
But whatever it is I will embrace it and just go out and have some fun, as I do with every mmo I play, enjoy it for what it is not cry over what it isn't, life is too short.