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.
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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
Assuming that the balancing of the system is fixed, and the manipulation and gaming of it is brought to a minimally intrusive level - and those are fairly large and demanding assumptions, mind you - it still does what every MMO before it has done time and time again in similar, yet slightly different ways. Call it what you will, Karma, Corruption, Evilness.. it's all the same thing. It's the game deciding what is right and wrong for the players. Let me stress that I'm not some PvP fanatic bent on bringing anarchy to the game and breaking down all order. But if someone starts taking my farm from somewhere I've been for a while, I want to be able to teach them to do otherwise. Having to worry about whether they fight back, or just sit there smugly, knowing that if I kill them I am guaranteed to die and lose a lot as a result, is not something I want to do.
This is why I made the suggestion in my first post on Page 5 to use the Guild system as a means to deter people from killing other players. I wrote more about in in the second half of that post, under that which you had previously responded to.
Basically, the post I had written was about more than just the system feeling too much like a game. I clarified what I had meant elsewhere on the thread, but it has been long lost in the many posts.
If someone attacks me, it is in my best interests to fight back.
With the exception of attacking reds assumption (which I don't expect to make it to launch), what advantage does anyone have in staying green if attacked?
I agree that it is still a game, and the developers are doing their best to reflect the world and its lore through this system. The realism that you described in your comment is a step above what I was attempting to convey. Despite this, I acknowledge your point that a game can only go so far to emulate a world. There are bound to be instances where not every part functions cohesively and begins to feel more like a game than we'd like it to.
I have elaborated on this previously in a different post. But to respond directly and not quote another lengthy comment, the basic idea is that systems that run on a stat to measure good or bad behavior in games are inept. Even under the assumption that the system is implemented in a balanced manner that brings its manipulation and gaming by players to a minimum - a sizable and demanding assumption, mind you - it cannot accommodate the complex nature of human interactions. It can help prevent abuse, yet at the same time it inhibits players who are not a part of the griefing issue. The average player whose farm is infringed upon can either decide to fight and hope that the enemy player fights back instead of sitting back smugly while being killed, knowing that the punishment for the attacker will be harsh, or grin and bear it and move on. Hardly sounds like meaningful combat to me, personally.
This is why I would encourage the developers to create a system where players hold each other accountable. The point I was trying to make is that AoC, being a game meant to revolutionize MMOs, should try to create a system where players are punished by their peers as a result of unfriendly actions or behaviors. The part below the paragraph from which you drew that quote is a rough example of such a system I created to demonstrate this idea. That is my main point, out of all of this. Regrettably, the post has been buried in the dark depths of Page 5, but I would be interested in hearing whatever feedback anyone has regarding the conception of such a system.
Sadly, most of what I write is too long, so I doubt many people read anything in its entirety. But I reject futility on principle.
- Sikuba
Not everyone is up for that. Its basically you guessing whether or not the other guy is gonna actually kill you.
I guess, for me, it doesn't destroy immersion any more than the UI destroys immersion. I know I'm playing a game, regardless. Takes quite a bit more to destroy immersion for me, but... Your mileage may vary.
But...!!
Seems like the flaw is that there is no way for me to become purple if I'm attacked by a red. Is that right?
If so, that's a problem; but not with immersion.
The first is it would discourage grouping - to an extent. People would be far less willing to group with people they don't know, on the off chance that could open them up to unwanted attention.
The second is that with the decay in infamy you outlined. it would see people simply leave their character afk in a town or similar (relatively) safe place in order to decay their days worth of infamy.
While both of these can be worked around, the point is that all systems have flaws.
The thing with the corruption system the way we understand it (assuming the assumption about greens vs reds is dealt with) is that it gives players options.
Options are good.
If a player attacks a green that is out harvesting, that is something the green likely didn't want. If that player does decide to not fight back, that is something the attacker likely didn't want. The fact that the green player has an option other than bending to the will of the attacker and fight back is a good thing, a refreshing thing, a new thing.
It may seem odd that not fighting back is an option, but when you are forced in to a situation, having an odd option is better than not having an option.
The system is designed to cause different outcomes, it is supposed to throw things up in the air a bit, it is supposed to make people think twice before attacking another player - it isn't supposed to stop them attacking, just think twice about it.
The way I see the corruption system, Intrepid have 6 levels to pull to influence player activity.
1, the percent chance of losing an item based on total corruption.
2, the amount of corruption gained for killing an equal level player.
3, the percentage gain in corruption as the level of player gets lower.
4, the difference in drop rates of materials between dying as a green vs purple.
5, the amount of corruption removed on death.
6, the additional corruption removed based on being a citizen of a Military node with appropriate upgrade.
All of that is without adding anything along the lines of alternative ways to reduce corruption (which may make it in to the game, but I personally hope don't).
That is a whole lot of room to influence player behavior. To me, that is the strength of this system - a simple change to one field in a database will cause any one of a number of adjustments in player behavior, meaning Intrepid can keep things how *they* want.
I would personally like to assume there is a way to flag ourselves as combatants without having to initiate combat. All PvP games I have played with flagging systems have had this, I don't see Intrepid neglecting this.
If you didn't want PvP the first time why do you the second time? Revenge? Sure, take it like a player though and make it more fair than you were treated and flag purple first.
Unfortunately, players will glitch any system so I would prefer attacking players (of any color) flags the attacker purple.
The problem itself was just an example of a point I was making about a system like this possessing workarounds and exploitable aspects that would become a part of the game. These are things that don't necessarily make sense logically, but for whatever reason provide certain advantages that you must be aware of. That is the part that, to me at least, breaks immersion.
Having to play around a system and do silly things like tagging yourself purple before you are killed by the crazy strong Red player so you lose less loot turns me off (Staying green probably isn't much of a punishment for someone who is already Red and intent on killing you). I understand if you feel differently - it's a matter of opinion.
First I'll address the two qualms you had with my plan. I won't argue with your assertion that no system can be perfect, as that argument is too general and can neither be proven nor disproven, as well as beside the point. Just because every system has flaws doesn't mean that you cannot find different systems with fewer, or less impactful flaws.
The first argument that it would discourage grouping among strangers - it's a fair point because I failed to mention something in the post. Enmity is public, meaning that everyone can view you and your current Enemies by inspecting you. Infamy is similar to the current Corruption, as well. You would know if someone was considered a Criminal. Basically, you would know who you were partying with and whether grouping with them puts you in a dangerous situation. Otherwise exactly what you said would happen, and people would be afraid to interact with others out of fear of being targeted by their party member's Sworn Enemies. This could also open up opportunities for people to be easily baited and killed by contrived Enmity agreements. Glad to be able to clarify that one.
The second is that people would AFK to get rid of their Infamy. While that's a possibility, the Bounty Hunting system should be enough to keep that sort of behavior in check. Bounty Hunters are able to see the location of Infamous targets, just as they would Corrupted with the current PK system. One problem that would definitely arise is what happens when an Infamous person arrives at their home, or another "safe" location (Assuming homes are safe locations). In that case, I would imagine that the easy fix would be to stop Infamy decay in these zones.
For the Infamy system, unlike the Corruption system, which mandates death as a result of acquiring any amount of Corruption, Infamy should be able to be lost in several ways:
1. Decay -- Happens over time, the more you have, the faster it decreases. This also creates a sort of artificial cap to Infamy.
2. Death -- You die, you lose some Infamy.
3. Killing other Infamous Targets -- By doing some good in the world and killing bad guys, you become less of a bad guy yourself, slightly.
Responding to what you said about green players having another option, I must point out that it is here that we will probably never reach agreement. Rather than being based on fact or logic, I disagree with not fighting back and accepting death being a valid option. Using your own life as leverage to protect yourself doesn't make any sense to me and I disagree with it on principle. If you're just some helpless person and people kill you, they deserve to be punished, but if you could even remotely fight back or run and you CHOOSE not to in favor of letting yourself die and giving enemies a debuff... That seems wrong to me. Maybe you disagree, I don't know. The point is that opinions are hard to change and I don't feel like trying to change yours on that matter, although I did present my perspective.
As for what you said on the many different values associated with Corruption, I agree that there are a lot of different ways by which they can balance the stat itself depending on what presents itself as an issue. Competition will exist, so to negate it or change it, one just simply needs to change the value of things. It's a very blunt philosophy, and I believe there are better ways that can contribute more meaningful player interaction than simply numerically increasing the risk or reducing the reward of PKing. Because that's the only thing all of those statistics are doing. It's simple, it may even be effective to an extent. But it's dull, and it's certainly nothing new to the genre.
But this still relies on Red players making it back to safety, where they can deposit their loot. If two Red players team up, they don't even need to make it back to safety to mitigate losses. They can just kill each other, and collect each others loot, allowing them to rid themselves of their Corrupt status.
There are a lot of holes to patch in this system. I would like to stress that I'm pointing out the flaws that I can see with the intent of trying to reduce the trial and error that will occur come Alpha.
The method of not fighting back in order to hand an attacker a penalty does seem wrong, but the actual results both in terms of the system and in terms of the options it opens up for players is right.
It seems to me that the differences in a conversation like this stem basically from some people looking at the situation more from the attackers side, and others looking at the situation more from the perspective of the person being attacked.
If you are trying to do something in a game - what that thing is doesn't matter - and someone insists on trying to prevent that action via PvP, in a PvX game there should be both a viable PvP response and a viable non-PvP response to aggression.
I don't "like" what the current non-PvP action is, but I can't see PvP'ers happy with people having an ability to simply wave off a potential attacker as a response to PvP action either.
Purely in regards to systems, it actually works really well from a basic standpoint. Both actions have consequences and benefits for both parties.
As for the corruption system being dull... may be. Thing is, in most MMO's a system like this would govern the majority of PvP. In AoC, it is only governing a small portion of PvP with the bulk happening in regards to caravans (most open world PvP should happen here), guild wars, sieges and the arena.
The two flaws you pointed out with corruption are things I had already thought about, and was planning on testing in alpha 1 or 2, sometimes next year when the system is implemented.
I've played a game where people used the unequip method to avoid punishment - the developers simply made it so that it applied to all items you had equipped in the last hour and said that if people continue to do it, they will extend that to 24 hours.
It stopped.
It is also possible to make it so all guards attack red players on sight - that will prevent anyone going to city based storage. Alternatively, they could make it so that if you die with both corruption an empty slot (or a slot with low level/quality gear) then the drop chance from corruption applies to everything you have in storage.
Having a friend kill you to remove corruption is also something I've seen, developers simply made it so that kills from specific characters were essentially on cooldowns.
Hopefully things like this get dealt with before the game goes live, and to that end I do personally plan on spending a good amount of time poking at everything to do with the corruption system during alpha testing, and once it is in a state that seems worth testing.
For me, what I'm looking for from this system is the ability to PK when necessary, and not be crippled as a result. The only major MMOs I have played extensively are WoW, Neverwinter, and BDO. Neverwinter world PvP is practically nonexistent, and I never participated in world PvP in WoW, so my experience in this regard stems from defending mobs in the grindy world of BDO.
Mob farming is essentially half of BDO, and so the ability to defend your territory and farm is crucial to making any progress or money. The system from the perspective of someone looking to defend their territory, not necessarily a PKer or griefer, is harsh. I think even you can agree with me on that. If someone starts taking the mobs I'm farming, I want the ability to stomp them into the dirt without having to die as a result. So I guess technically I'm regarding this from the point of an attacker.. Sort of.
I guess it makes sense that we don't agree, with that in consideration. I do, however, believe that it can be helpful to look at other systems that would punish negative behavior differently. I would like to think this could be done while still maintaining the order that allows people not interested in PvP to coexist alongside PKing enthusiasts without losing their minds in frustration.
I still see some problems with the unequip method. With the hour long thing, or even the 24 hour long thing, although you still have a chance of losing a decent item, you can dampen those chances by equipping and unequipping a large quantity of trash gear. I guess the best way would be to make the chance apply only to the best item you possess in any inventory slot in your bank. But at the same time, even that can be avoided by giving items to a friend to hold before dropping Corruption. I don't see an easy solution to that.
The friend-killing cooldown should apply to alts in this game, as well. At the same time, not being able to lose Corruption to the same player means that even an enemy player can kill you repeatedly without you losing any Corruption. Basically, they can steal everything you own if they keep doing it with no repercussions. As long as they're able to find you and catch you, anything you own is theirs. Hopefully respawn locations will be far enough away and random enough that this wouldn't even be an issue.
Like you said, there's a lot we won't know until the game hits Alpha. I think we've debated for long enough that further discussion is moot. If the devs want feedback, they have it in spades. I'm going to go to sleep now. I has been fun conversing with you.
- Sikuba
What you mean to say is that humans like to cheat.
Which is why some games have arbiters and referees.
In real life, we generally don't just walk up to random people and punch them in the face in order to steal their stuff - because the risk of penalties/punishment is generally too great.
Although tabletop RPGs were 95+% played co-op.
Because players were free to PK people in games like UO, many PvPers think that it's OK to kill any player character they are capable of killing. To them, player characters are really no different than NPCs - except they are likely to provide more challenging combat than AI.
Much like exploiting in general, it's OK to do anything in the game that the game does not prevent you from doing. Unless the devs ban you - which is considered to be unfair.
The easy solution would be to have separate servers for hardcore PvPers, separate servers for casual PvPers and separate servers for PvP combat haters.
Then all the greens would be happily playing among themselves and the hardcore PvPers would be happily fighting amongst themselves with no Corruption.
The casual PvPers would still have to deal with some form of flagging - which would break immersion to some degree. But, worth it to be able to avoid being PKed while not in the mood for PvP combat. Of course, most casual PvPers would still be griefed so often that they would move to the PvE-only servers...which is typically the case.
The last several years, the hardcore PvP players have been championing the concept of integrated servers. And, sure, I have friends who hardcore PvP friends who I would love to be able to co-op with, so I kinda see the appeal, even though really, I know from experience that I prefer to play on PvE-only servers because I equate being forced to engage in PvP combat encounters when I'm not in the mood to be not much different than being forced into sex while not in the mood. And we even hear similar responses from assailants of "why did you enter the house/room if you didn't want to have sex? Why did you get drunk? What were you wearing."
"Why are playing a PvP game if you don't want to PvP?" "Why are you in a PvP area if you don't want to PvP?" "Why are you still flagged for PvP if you don't want to PvP?"
"Who cares if you explicitly state that you're not in the mood for PvP combat??The game allows me to kill you, so I'm going to kill you."
If hardcore PvPers and casual PvPers and PvP haters are all going to play on the same servers, there will have to be intrusive, in your face, hardcoded restrictions.
Because we fundamentally don't agree on what is fair play when it comes to PvP combat - and it's highly unlikely that we ever will.
Four years ago, when we first tried to discuss the topic of non-segregated servers, that was the quickest way for anyone in the discussion to get banned from the forums.
The hardcore PvPers would offer what seemed to them a fair solution and the casual PvPers and non-PvPers would feel insulted by the suggestions and flip their lids.
The casual PvPers and non-PvPers would offer what seemed to them a fair solution and the hardcore PvPers would feel insulted and blow their gaskets.
It wasn't much better as people joined the Ashes forums during Kickstarter last year.
First major concern for casual PvPers and non-PvPers was non-segregated servers: The Corruption system is not enough of a deterrent.
The hardcore PvPers, are ecstatic to have non-segregated servers, but feel that the Corruption system is too harsh on PvPers.
Moderation is much looser here than on most MMORPG forums, so people didn't get banned and the threads were able to run for weeks before being closed due to hostility, but tensions were extremely high on both sides.
These days we're mostly stuck in let's try it out mode.
The devs are not going to change the Corruption system until we do try it.
And people in each camp will be frustrated to some degree.
I'm skeptical that all three playstyles can happily play together on non-segregated servers, but we might as well test to see if it's possible rather than just doing same-old/same-old from the past 20 years.
I spent 3 years playing Archeage - essentially the game the bulk of the PvP systems in AoC are based on. Most of my time in Archeage was spent as a pirate, basically voluntarily making myself red to every other player on the server - so a lot of PvP.
As well as a number of other MMO's (most that have come out in the west - even if only briefly), I played BDO for around 6 months. In that 6 months, I didn't once see a PvP encounter.
In most games, I tend to have a plan for what I want to do well before I actually log in to the game. That plan may be raiding, it may be group content, it may be PvP, it may be harvesting. But more than that - if I am planning on doing any of these activities, I have a goal in mind - kill a specific raid encounter, run a specific dungeon, earn a specific amount of [insert PvP rewards here], or harvest a particular amount of what ever I am looking for.
Some PvP player coming in and attacking me is getting in the way of me and my goals - and as far as I am concerned that player has no right to do so (not true, I know they do, but I'm sure you get what I mean).
If someone is going to interrupt what I am doing via PvP, the game had better offer me multiple options for what I can do otherwise it is forcing me in to something that is not what I want to be doing. Most games the options are...
1, fight back.
That is all.
Even if I don't like what the other option being given to us in AoC is (assuming it stays as described), the fact that it is there is something that actually is new.
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BDO had mob rotations that people wanted to defend - they were static, easy and profitable. It is about the only thing in BDO that I have ever even heard of PvP being used for. The thing is, in BDO these mob rotations were almost all there was to do for many players - in terms of things that were worth doing. For many people, it was a choice of fighting for a rotation, or not having a productive play session.
This won't be the case in AoC. There will be (should be) multiple things a player can do that are worthwhile, and for things like harvesting, multiple places they can do it. The need to defend a space is (probably) going to be far less of a thing in AoC than the need to defend a rotation in BDO was.
Also, resources will move. Once a specific resource is depleted it will respawn somewhere else - essentially anywhere in the world. This means rotations won't become much of a thing even if harvesting was the most profitable activity. I'm sure you would agree, without an area to defend, the notion of what a PvP system needs to be gets shifted somewhat.
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With corruption, it isn't a case of you have x% chance to lose an item, each item gains x% chance of being lost. This means that if you equip/unequip multiple items,in order to protect your valuable items, you simply have more items that could drop, but they all have the original drop chance.
Trading items to a friend could be a work-around - but the developers could easily prevent items with a corruption drop chance from being traded.
If that player is killed 2 or 3 times a day, I don't think that player will resubscribe.
This is the balance that I personally think Intrepid are trying to build in to the system, and why it has so many points they can balance it from.
I understand your concerns and you are right. It's basically another way that people will use to trick the system.
Maybe one idea would be to not allow gear swapping in combat. So if you want to use worse gear but are going to get killed because of it, it's actually because of a choice you made (let alone the fact that your inventory will be more filled).
But how should a much better geared player be penalized for attacking one that doesn't have almost any chance (while being at a similar level)? I'm especially concerned about this because we'll probably have the idea of "max level". This implies that someone who just got to that max level is going to be far worse geared than someone who farms 40-men raid content.
That's the only reason I thought gear difference should matter somehow with Corruption. I don't see any other system that can compensate for that (unless you normalize gear in PvP, which is much worse in my opinion).
Anyway, if gear swapping is not allowed in combat, then the colored icons I proposed are going to show a truthful idea of how equal you are to another player. What's left for us is to actually have to possibility to run away from an attacker (i.e. not having the same run speed, or having abilities that can get you far away for enough time to get out of combat).
Would my idea of resource flagging work for groups too? Some variables do change when you got 10v10, especially if party/raid flagging will be a thing.
This way they can keep the casual players, while advertising that "hey, we ain't restrict PvP anywhere, we have no safe zones!", while not mention the fact, that you can't freely PvP, as you are punished heavily, effectively making the game same, as other's with no PvP option in everywhere...
I can see the attraction of wanting to put in gear related penalties with corruption, but I personally don't think it is needed.
First of all, I seriously doubt there will be any kind of gear score in AoC. Steven has said no to systems in the past based on those systems being used in other games to segregate players, and I would think gear score would fit right in there.
Even putting a small indicator next to a players name would be enough - people would refuse to group with someone of the same level that shows as green to them.
As an example of how far Intrepid are likely to take this stance on not putting anything in game to be used to segregate the community - it is quite possible we won't be able to inspect other characters in game to see what they have equipped.
Many people will likely scream out "how am I supposed to know if I want to take someone on if I don't know what gear they have?"
The simple answer to that is - you don't, attack at your own risk.
It is also worth noting that if someone with better quality gear attacks someone of the same level, they will have a higher penalty than someone with average gear attacking that same character. Since corruption can cause out gear to be dropped on death, the better the gear someone is wearing or has on them, the better the gear that player stands to lose.
1. PvPers are afraid to lose gear so they will use worse items;
2. Non PvPers will know that most PvPers are going to use worse items, thus are going to use the best gear to win the fights.
1+2. PvPers know they have double the risk: losing the fight and losing gear, so they won't PvP at all. Which makes the whole system unusable.
If the chance to lose gear is too high, no one will want to get corruption (plus the current iteration of it is off a bit). If the chance is too low, you have the opposite - no one is going to care about losing gear.
The fact of knowing how good a player's gear/level is compared to yours mitigates half the risk (the part about losing the fight). But, indeed, it will segregate players, especially when forming groups for dungeons and such.
Damn, can't see a proper way around this... A compromise that will end up in the middle without any chance of going to either of the extremes.
If not enough people are attacking in open PvP, Intrepid can alter these facets of the system to slightly decrease the overall penalties of attacking. If too many people are attacking, Intrepid can increase the penalties.
With these six levers, Intrepid can indirectly influence the amount of PvP that takes place under the corruption system.
This system won't be set up in a fixed manner - it will be designed with the need to adjust in the future.
Gearscore isn't soemthign that purposely implemented in games. It's here cause the fact that this game is based on gears.
There maybe no dedicated score for it, they can even hide itemlevels on purpose, but then the players just use something else to measure gear, like how much str a player has, so you only change it's name, but the thrash wil be still separated from the rest...
@Noaani At first they will probably keep an eye on those things. Later on, it might become too cumbersome / not cost effective to do. As any market or society, it's going to regulate itself after a while. How it does it should be the question.
What I mean is that right now the corruption system isn't enough to prevent exploits and such, without another "controller" - a system that regulates the need for the PK/PvP interactions. Corruption is the effect, resources are the cause (maybe?), and we need something in-between. One idea was the resource tagging by players. There probably are many more.
With this in mind, pulling those levers isn't going to accomplish much without further changes. They'd be modifying the effect while keeping the cause fixed. This just nudges the player base to regulate itself towards different extremes or similar, without fixing the actual flaws (i.e. that the final regulatory point is going to be near an extreme).
Also, how should the devs inform the player base about the changes? should they do it at all? I mean, changing some chance from 7% to 4% might not be visible for several weeks (and most likely there will be few that care to compute it and even fewer that will read/understand those numbers). By that time the devs could've changed the values again... and so on.