How will Ashes of Creation deal with the PKers?

I have been a fan of mmorpg's for over 15 years. If I were to categorize the player base of those many games I have played it would be as thus:

1) PVE
2) PVP
3) PK

I just read a wonderful article regarding the soon to release Amazon game "New World". I link a post from a developer of this game here:

https://reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/eq8wzu/the_evolution_of_new_worlds_pvp/

I would describe myself predominately as a PVE orientated player. Do I wish to take part in PVP? That depends upon the reason for PVPing. If there is an in-game reason, such as captor or defend property, then yes. If it is simply to grief some low level because I can, then NO!

It seems to me that like many other titles New World is going to suffer the fate of many other games that ignored to their peril the PK element that plagues such games. Amazon have developed a game over 3 or so years based upon a fair open world PVP theology only to discover that the PK element have other plans. Amazon's reply is to make PVP "optional" even though their game was entirely built upon the premise of open world PVP.

The reason I post this is the last development update I watched on Youtube showing dev's killing players in a small town and those players reciprocating.

I would be interested to know how the team are going to deal with PKers and their toxic behaviors or do they think this is not a problem at all?

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Undead Canuck

So, steering back to the OP question.

Ashes will deal with PKing by using the corruption system. Read all about it and see if that is what you want to play. During the Alphas, we will be testing the corruption system as well to ensure it is what Intrepid expected.

Incarnatus

Awesome, thanks for the comments and link. I do like the idea behind the Corruption System. How it is implemented may well change over time ....

Hartwell

Jahlon wrote: »

The Corruption System

https://www.ashes101.com/pvp#corruption

That's a good amount of detail! I noticed that you dropped "bounty hunter" once in the article and didn't really touch on it. You did touch a little bit on it in the nodes section.

Military nodes are planned to allow it's citizens to hunt down corrupt players who get a bounty placed on them.

Military nodes might also bait PKers towards them with reduced corruption punishment in their territories, so you might actually be safer in a PvE leaning node than in a military node.

mikechella

hartwell wrote: »

Jahlon wrote: »

The Corruption System

https://www.ashes101.com/pvp#corruption

That's a good amount of detail! I noticed that you dropped "bounty hunter" once in the article and didn't really touch on it. You did touch a little bit on it in the nodes section.

Military nodes are planned to allow it's citizens to hunt down corrupt players who get a bounty placed on them.

Military nodes might also bait PKers towards them with reduced corruption punishment in their territories, so you might actually be safer in a PvE leaning node than in a military node.

I wish every node type allowed for some type of bounty system.

Ventharien

mikechella wrote: »

I wish every node type allowed for some type of bounty system.

If it's like the markets and libraries of the economic and scientific nodes, you will. They'll just do it better. Plus if your node has a military vassal, or is a vassal to a military node, you'll probably be able to gain some level of benefit from it.

Hartwell

Ventharien wrote: »

mikechella wrote: »

I wish every node type allowed for some type of bounty system.

If it's like the markets and libraries of the economic and scientific nodes, you will. They'll just do it better. Plus if your node has a military vassal, or is a vassal to a military node, you'll probably be able to gain some level of benefit from it.

I think the plan was to make it so any rank 4 military node could enlist bounty hunters from their population. Those bounty hunters are then able to get the bounty quests from taverns that post them.

mikechella

hartwell wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

mikechella wrote: »

I wish every node type allowed for some type of bounty system.

If it's like the markets and libraries of the economic and scientific nodes, you will. They'll just do it better. Plus if your node has a military vassal, or is a vassal to a military node, you'll probably be able to gain some level of benefit from it.

I think the plan was to make it so any rank 4 military node could enlist bounty hunters from their population. Those bounty hunters are then able to get the bounty quests from taverns that post them.

So to be a bounty hunter you would need to be a citizen of a level 4 military node, at which point you can travel the land picking up bounties from any tavern?

Hartwell

mikechella wrote: »

hartwell wrote: »

Ventharien wrote: »

mikechella wrote: »

I wish every node type allowed for some type of bounty system.

If it's like the markets and libraries of the economic and scientific nodes, you will. They'll just do it better. Plus if your node has a military vassal, or is a vassal to a military node, you'll probably be able to gain some level of benefit from it.

I think the plan was to make it so any rank 4 military node could enlist bounty hunters from their population. Those bounty hunters are then able to get the bounty quests from taverns that post them.

So to be a bounty hunter you would need to be a citizen of a level 4 military node, at which point you can travel the land picking up bounties from any tavern?

That sounds like the plan. I only got some sources from the wiki here, so I'm not sure if there is newer information. Keep in mind that this stuff is all subject to change.

On the subject of becoming a bounty hunter (2017):
"if you have the bounty hunter title, which can be obtained through a quest available to a citizen from a military zoned, stage 4 (town) node."

On the subject of bounty hunter tracking corrupted players (2017):
"If you are like an expert bounty hunter, you may get really specific locations."

On the subject of bounties being in taverns (2017):
"You don’t just have to hunt monsters, though, the bounty system will be present at the tavern as well. When someone in our world openly kills fellow players they become corrupted, and bounties will be set for these players."

Edit 1: Corrected that broken link.

Edit 2: Another thing to note is that they didn't say that non-bounty hunters couldn't pick up the tavern bounties. They only said that "Groups can become bounty hunters in their spare time in order to help those in the nearby region by cleansing it of these corrupted souls." This could mean that the bounty hunter title is just a way to quickly track corrupted players. You might end up wandering around blindly without an actual bounty hunter player with you.

Ventharien

Hmm maybe time to ask during live stream for an update. Pretty old mentions.

Adartaer

I will be 33 in september I spend my whole life in mmorpg starting from Ragnarok Online ending on Aion. My best momories are from PvP / Open PvP / etc. I love that emotions when you don't know what's gonna happend in next 5 minutes, are you safe here? Maybe some Assassin is nearby in Hide etc. I waited my entire life for game like that. Thanks AoC.

George_Black

Adartaer wrote: »

I will be 33 in september I spend my whole life in mmorpg starting from Ragnarok Online ending on Aion. My best momories are from PvP / Open PvP / etc. I love that emotions when you don't know what's gonna happend in next 5 minutes, are you safe here? Maybe some Assassin is nearby in Hide etc. I waited my entire life for game like that. Thanks AoC.

Plus there are plenty of games out there in which PvP is isolated only in BGs and in 1 piece of the world map. Two of them are considered top mmorpgs.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

Adartaer wrote: »

I will be 33 in september I spend my whole life in mmorpg starting from Ragnarok Online ending on Aion. My best momories are from PvP / Open PvP / etc. I love that emotions when you don't know what's gonna happend in next 5 minutes, are you safe here? Maybe some Assassin is nearby in Hide etc. I waited my entire life for game like that. Thanks AoC.

Plus there are plenty of games out there in which PvP is isolated only in BGs and in 1 piece of the world map. Two of them are considered top mmorpgs.

You and I don't agree on many things in regards to PvP, but I totally agree with what you are saying here.

If people don't want open PvP, there are other games out there to play that don't have it.

Merle

I still don't see the current version of the corruption system working out well in practice. For a player to become corrupted the attacked player has to not fight back - otherwise both will just become combatants.

But 1) if I'm attacked I probably don't know the level, etc. of the attacker. So if I decide not to fight back for the other to become corrupted, I will die to a player which is way lower in level than me. OR I try to fight back, but notice then that the other one is 50 levels higher than me - then I die and the other one becomes NOT corrupted since I tried to fight back.

And 2) As a combatant I have decreased penalties when I die. So when I'm attacked by a high level player, I have basically two bad options: either I fight back so that my penalties are lower, but then the other one is not flagged corrupt, or I do not fight back to make the other one corrupt, but then I have higher death penalties.

So whatever I do as a low level player against a high level player attacking me, I do the wrong thing and loose in any way.

Caeryl

merle wrote: »

I still don't see the current version of the corruption system working out well in practice. For a player to become corrupted the attacked player has to not fight back - otherwise both will just become combatants.

But 1) if I'm attacked I probably don't know the level, etc. of the attacker. So if I decide not to fight back for the other to become corrupted, I will die to a player which is way lower in level than me. OR I try to fight back, but notice then that the other one is 50 levels higher than me - then I die and the other one becomes NOT corrupted since I tried to fight back.

And 2) As a combatant I have decreased penalties when I die. So when I'm attacked by a high level player, I have basically two bad options: either I fight back so that my penalties are lower, but then the other one is not flagged corrupt, or I do not fight back to make the other one corrupt, but then I have higher death penalties.

So whatever I do as a low level player against a high level player attacking me, I do the wrong thing and loose in any way.

When a combatant kills a non-combatant that’s significantly lower level than them, they take a significantly higher corruption penalty.

We’ll have to see in practice to fine tune it, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to view player levels. That would be fairly nonstandard to hide such basic information.

Atama

merle wrote: »

I still don't see the current version of the corruption system working out well in practice. For a player to become corrupted the attacked player has to not fight back - otherwise both will just become combatants.

But 1) if I'm attacked I probably don't know the level, etc. of the attacker.

Why? Most games have the player’s level floating next to their name. Do we know that Ashes won’t?

unknownsystemerror

@Caeryl @Atama The info given as of right now is that you won't see player levels or info about them like health remaining. This is all party of the risk v reward and is intended to keep people from griefing others by attacking them, but not killing them just to irritate and harass. This does not apply to people you are partied with. Only those who are outside your affiliations.

So if you are a griefer, just running up to random people and trying to kill them could end badly for you. You are a 50 and think you are a badass because you like to randomly grief people. (They are out there.) You end up hitting someone who is level 5 and one shot them. You accrue enough corruption that your gear is locked in place and you might lose it on next death. Your stats are gimped already, and once you are found and killed, enjoy those probable multiple hours or even days of working off that exp debt. Working as intended.

Caeryl

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

The info given as of right now is that you won't see player levels or info about them like health remaining. This is all party of the risk v reward and is intended to keep people from griefing others by attacking them, but not killing them just to irritate and harass. This does not apply to people you are partied with. Only those who are outside your affiliations.

So if you are a griefer, just running up to random people and trying to kill them could end badly for you. You are a 50 and think you are a badass because you like to randomly grief people. (They are out there.) You end up hitting someone who is level 5 and one shot them. You accrue enough corruption that your gear is locked in place and you might lose it on next death. Your stats are gimped already, and once you are found and killed, enjoy those probable multiple hours or even days of working off that exp debt. Working as intended.

Unless there’s some other feedback to indicate a players remaining health and approximate level (which should mean armor style but so far all the armor looks nearly identical), I don’t think that no-info system will last past Alpha. It’s impossible to weigh risks when you have no information to base it on.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

The info given as of right now is that you won't see player levels or info about them like health remaining. This is all party of the risk v reward and is intended to keep people from griefing others by attacking them, but not killing them just to irritate and harass. This does not apply to people you are partied with. Only those who are outside your affiliations.

So if you are a griefer, just running up to random people and trying to kill them could end badly for you. You are a 50 and think you are a badass because you like to randomly grief people. (They are out there.) You end up hitting someone who is level 5 and one shot them. You accrue enough corruption that your gear is locked in place and you might lose it on next death. Your stats are gimped already, and once you are found and killed, enjoy those probable multiple hours or even days of working off that exp debt. Working as intended.

Unless there’s some other feedback to indicate a players remaining health and approximate level (which should mean armor style but so far all the armor looks nearly identical), I don’t think that no-info system will last past Alpha. It’s impossible to weigh risks when you have no information to base it on.

I agree.

Making choices matter, player agency, all that kind of thing - if players can't make informed choices, it is all meaningless PR drivel. In order to make informed choices, players obviously need information - a choice without information is literally the definition of a guess.

I mean, the theory is all well and good of taking away information so that I can't half kill a player and leave the rest up to PvE to take care of - but the mechanic proposed to do that also means that if I want to PvP over a resource spawn point, I have no idea if I am attacking a level 50 player or a level 5 player, and thus I have no idea what potential penalties I am facing.

Not knowing that means I can't make an informed decision at all.

Thus, Intrepid have three real options. Ashes needs to provide players with as much information as is possible for players to take on board, Ashes needs to not make consequences matter, or Intrepid need to be ok with forcing consequences on players after players take a wild guess at what the best course of action would be.

To many players, only one of these is acceptable.

If Intrepid want to stop players dealing damage to others and leaving it to PvE mobs to finish them off, all they need to do is make it so you gain corruption if you attack another player and they die within 30 seconds (or some other time frame). Problem solved, the very thing you are trying to do to avoid corruption still actually just gives you corruption - and additionally means if you attempt to warn another player by attacking them and hitting them once, they can retaliate by running in to the nearest mob and letting it kill them (though sucks for them if it takes more than 30 seconds).

I mean, I'd personally be fine with players not being able to see my level, but still having their punishment be based on that level if they attack and kill me. I can think of a number of ways I can turn that to my advantage at both a small scale (harvesting with a level 5 character with a hidden friend/bounty hunter nearby), as well as at a raid level.

If I have a raid going, but half of the raid members are level 5 with expensive cosmetic gear on and no actual armor, if another raid attacks us they are going to end up with a significantly larger penalty than they would expect. If we make a point of not being the initial aggressor, when they do get around to attacking us, half of our raid would fight back, the other half would die as soon as they are hit - and the opposing raid would have no way of knowing which is which until they attack each character (hence cosmetic gear). The corruption they gain from killing those players would mean that the half raid we have left would be more than able to take them out with ease, and take a good portion of their gear at that.

All for what seemed to the attacking raid like a legitimate raid v raid situation. Not sure how healthy a PvP game Ashes will be if this kind of thing happens - but if it is able to be done, you had better believe I'll be making it happen.

So yeah, I don't see that system making it past alpha due to how obvious and easy it is to misuse.

granthor

I have not played this game in a very long time, but they have a few ideas on how to deal with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDIRPltIY-s

Ventharien

noaani wrote: »

If I have a raid going, but half of the raid members are level 5 with expensive cosmetic gear on and no actual armor, if another raid attacks us they are going to end up with a significantly larger penalty than they would expect. If we make a point of not being the initial aggressor, when they do get around to attacking us, half of our raid would fight back, the other half would die as soon as they are hit - and the opposing raid would have no way of knowing which is which until they attack each character (hence cosmetic gear). The corruption they gain from killing those players would mean that the half raid we have left would be more than able to take them out with ease, and take a good portion of their gear at that.

Well don't forget, we'll be able to turn those cosmetics off. So if you see half a raid in noob gear, and half in good gear, you know somethings fishy. I think they should display levels at close range, maybe a name at slightly further range. That way if you see a guy and want to go kill him, you have to get a little closer to get the info you need. If you decide to just charge him, then thats on you.

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