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Corruption System seems flawed
Linstead
Member
With the corruption system I can already see a few flaws and I'm sure there will also be many more. So I'd like to know if there are any ideas with how the developers will handle them or if the system will be changed.
Firstly, how is griefing going to be handled by the ToS and the GMs/devs? You could argue that the corruption system has so many penalties associated with it and that it's handled by "player agency" so there is no need for GM intervention, but what if you have a small handful of corrupted players (2-3) in a 40 man raid group, harassing level 1s on their level 50s for many many hours at a time? If the bounty hunters come along, the 37-38 other players can attack them, defending the corrupted players, with no penalty because bounty hunters are flagged as combatants. And you'd rarely see a level 50 non-combatant player in a level 1 area. Does that call for GM action? Will it be outlined in the ToS? Is it up to GM discretion (imo the absolute worst way to handle griefing as it's entirely subjective and changes on a GM to GM basis)? What will we do against people who abuse the system like this? I'm all for being a corrupt bad player, but killing lowbies isn't really fun for anyone.
Secondly, you have people who will abuse the system to reverse grief. As non-combatant players do not get flagged when they attack a player with corruption, you could have a group of non-combatants going around and intentionally griefing people by stealing their resources, tagging their mobs, blocking them from doing content, etc. As soon as that person has enough and turns to attack the guy who is harassing him, the guy just lets himself die and suddenly the victim is now corrupted allowing an entire party of non-combatants to beat him into the dirt with 0 penalty while the guy cannot even fight back without incurring more penalty unto himself, nor can he have anyone else assist him because they too would also gain corruption. The guy losing his resources, possibly losing gear, and getting even more frustrated. They could keep doing it to this guy with 0 penalty or they could be doing it to dozens of people daily. There will be no in-game repercussions against these "reverse griefers" but how will GMs handle it?
Thirdly, you have the bounty hunter system as a whole. A system meant for "player agency" and to deter people from becoming corrupted in the first place. A system that has dozens of hours already poured into it, and allows for unique interactions that you can't really find anywhere else. It's not going to get used, because while there still will be corrupted players from time to time, with all the penalties that corruption brings I guarantee it will happen so little that only a select handful of people will even bother with the bounty hunter system. If the reward for the bounties is too little, why should I care about stopping what I'm doing to go kill some PKer unless I'm specifically roleplaying? I don't care if some level 50 guy is out there on a murder spree, I'm busy with other shit, bounties give nothing compared to the content I'm already doing, so why should I go out of my way (especially if it's one of the two scenarios I already listed above)? This whole system feels like it will be null and void a few months after release unless it's changed. Not only because there won't be enough PKers to justify using the system in the first place, but because the reward structure is so insignificant that even when there is the random corrupted player it just won't be worth anyone's time or effort to go track them down and kill them.
Firstly, how is griefing going to be handled by the ToS and the GMs/devs? You could argue that the corruption system has so many penalties associated with it and that it's handled by "player agency" so there is no need for GM intervention, but what if you have a small handful of corrupted players (2-3) in a 40 man raid group, harassing level 1s on their level 50s for many many hours at a time? If the bounty hunters come along, the 37-38 other players can attack them, defending the corrupted players, with no penalty because bounty hunters are flagged as combatants. And you'd rarely see a level 50 non-combatant player in a level 1 area. Does that call for GM action? Will it be outlined in the ToS? Is it up to GM discretion (imo the absolute worst way to handle griefing as it's entirely subjective and changes on a GM to GM basis)? What will we do against people who abuse the system like this? I'm all for being a corrupt bad player, but killing lowbies isn't really fun for anyone.
Secondly, you have people who will abuse the system to reverse grief. As non-combatant players do not get flagged when they attack a player with corruption, you could have a group of non-combatants going around and intentionally griefing people by stealing their resources, tagging their mobs, blocking them from doing content, etc. As soon as that person has enough and turns to attack the guy who is harassing him, the guy just lets himself die and suddenly the victim is now corrupted allowing an entire party of non-combatants to beat him into the dirt with 0 penalty while the guy cannot even fight back without incurring more penalty unto himself, nor can he have anyone else assist him because they too would also gain corruption. The guy losing his resources, possibly losing gear, and getting even more frustrated. They could keep doing it to this guy with 0 penalty or they could be doing it to dozens of people daily. There will be no in-game repercussions against these "reverse griefers" but how will GMs handle it?
Thirdly, you have the bounty hunter system as a whole. A system meant for "player agency" and to deter people from becoming corrupted in the first place. A system that has dozens of hours already poured into it, and allows for unique interactions that you can't really find anywhere else. It's not going to get used, because while there still will be corrupted players from time to time, with all the penalties that corruption brings I guarantee it will happen so little that only a select handful of people will even bother with the bounty hunter system. If the reward for the bounties is too little, why should I care about stopping what I'm doing to go kill some PKer unless I'm specifically roleplaying? I don't care if some level 50 guy is out there on a murder spree, I'm busy with other shit, bounties give nothing compared to the content I'm already doing, so why should I go out of my way (especially if it's one of the two scenarios I already listed above)? This whole system feels like it will be null and void a few months after release unless it's changed. Not only because there won't be enough PKers to justify using the system in the first place, but because the reward structure is so insignificant that even when there is the random corrupted player it just won't be worth anyone's time or effort to go track them down and kill them.
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Comments
You would be surprised what clan war dynamics does. It is hard to explain, but lineage 2 is a living example that contradicts your suspicion.
In your second issue, this is kind of the system working as intended. If you attack a person greifing you, you do so knowing you may get corruption, and what the penalties of that corruption are. This issue is no different to a player that is just happily harvesting materials and someone comes up and kills them - in both cases it is the function of a known system being put to use as intended, even if it is not as one of the players involved want.
For your third issue, if there are not enough corrupted players around for the bounty hunter system to function, there are no less than 6 modifiers to the penalty for gaining, having and dying with corruption. Alterations to these modifiers will see players participate in actions that will result in them gaining corruption either more or less, depending on the way the adjustment is made.
Edit to add; while the system is not full proof, it is very robust and has very few areas in which it can actually be considered flawed. All of those remaining areas are better considered unfinished, rather than flawed, though none of those specific areas are involved in teh potential situations above.
Steven said that bounty hunters are flagged as combatants so that corrupted players don't accrue more corruption for defending themselves. And I hope you are correct that it does contradict it, but at the same time they have specifically stated that they don't really want to create many mechanics/reward structures around Corruption. So far we haven't heard much of the bounty hunter system, but from the AMAs/interviews it seems like bounty hunters will just get a measly amount of gold for killing a bounty, which just isn't worth it for a majority of players.
So the GMs are going to openly allow player griefing that has nothing to do with killing then? It seems pretty disheartening to hear that people can and will abuse the system and to hear "welp, you got what you asked for for killing that guy!"
Let's say you get a really really nice piece of gear from some end game content. People on the server hear about it. It's some legendary thing that is extremely rare. I can see a reality where my second situation WILL happen to that guy. He will be griefed for hours or even days on end, just on the chance that he might drop that gear eventually if he decides to retaliate in any way. Because players will want that gear. Then you have a situation where this guy doesn't even want to equip or use his gear because he might end up losing it to a bunch of no-lifes which isn't fun. I can see this especially happening to streamers, all the time (not that I care about what happens to streamers in particular).
You don't own mobs or resources. I can't steal them from you. If I pull a mob that you were going to kill, you are able to attempt to contest that mob and take the rewards away from me, should you like. The simple fact that there is a system in place to deal with cases where two players (or groups, or raids) are killing the same encounter says that Intrepid intend for that to happen fairly often.
In your example above, that player with the legendary items could probably just organize a node or guild war against the people that are bugging him, then they can all be killed without corruption.
People are unlikely to be this stupid in the first place, and even more unlikely to be this stupid when they see how easy it actually would be to deal with players like this.
The best way would be to not flag the bounty hunters, let it work similar to clan war mechanic where you can kill each other and it doesn't flag you and it doesn't increase your corruption, both ways.
The thread was only 8 posts long when you posted that - reading it would have told you that when bounty hunters are tracking corrupt players, they are considered combatants to corrupt players only.
This information is literally the third line of text on the bounty hunter page in the wiki - it is not some obscure fact.
Thanks for the explanation.
This situation is going to happen and I hate defending the corruption system for any reason. But, in your scenario, you obviously know what they are doing for gods sake don't let them troll you. Log off for a bit, they will move, go back to your freehold and decorate for a couple hours, anything just don't give them the satisfaction of falling into their trap. And be happy that they just didn't walk up and kill you for grins and giggles, cause that is going to happen more often then what you are describing.
You are being combative after all. You are essentially doing what a bounty hunter is doing.
The game looks at attacking a corrupt player as justice, not combatitivness.
Then why not the same for bounty hunters? They are playing the role of "cops" in a cops and robbers scenario. The "robbers" don't just get to shoot the cops and go "well they were combatants so it's ok!"
The fact that non-combatants don't flag in the same way bounty hunters do, just leads to griefing.
Hell, someone could accidentally hit you or engages in pvp against you before realizing you are not going to fight back. You could just aggro some mobs or jump off a cliff and let yourself die. Does that guy become corrupted? If he does, you are free to kill him when he intentionally backed off to avoid being corrupted? And he has a chance to drop his gear?
If there is goingto be a bounty hunter progression system, that has perks that players can earn as they progress, then there has to be a down side to it as well.
Has everyone forgotten how to communicate?
This is not a game where you are expected to just kill people because they look at you funny. If you don't have a damn good reason, you don't attack. The penalties for attacking "can" be debilitating in the truest sense of the word - so unless you have no other real option, you simply wouldn't.
You could have one bounty hunter in your group and 7 others that are non combative's applying "justice"
Seems like a bad system to me. IMO leave the justice to the bounty hunters
And let the corrupted player defend themselves with penalty till the bounty hunters bring them to justice.
Everything I hate about BDO is showing up in this game. Garbage karma system and RNG gear enhancement.
This over hype train is destined to a RMT Epeen gear vs player game where you can't defend your grind spot.
I was thinking the same thing.
All part of the deal with gaining corruption.
The option to avoid this completely was contained in that first choice you made when you first gained that corruption.
Corruption is a system implemented to stop griefing, but it just brings new flavors of griefing. How can you agree that "corruption is good because pking is not fun!" but in the same breath go "getting griefed without killing is completely fine and if you kill the griefer you should be punished for it as if you were a rampant pker"?
If you are being griefed by a player and want to kill them to get rid of them, then the best thing for you to do is to consider the additional death penalty a part of the consequence of killing that player.
If you do that, then kill said player and manage to work off the corruption before being killed, then you can consider that a bonus.
If I come up to you and non-violently contest some mobs or resources (try and get them before you), if I am doing a good job at it, you won't get as many. That doesn't mean I am griefing you, it means I am contesting content against you.
The issue here seems to be in the notion that you think this is griefing, rather than legitimate play.
If I am doing better at this than you, you can kill me if you want. Just remember, I already beat you at non-violently contesting, you are escalating things, not me.
On the other hand, if I am just following you around where ever you go, actually griefing you, all you need to do is lure me out to an area that is not frequented by players often, kill me and then work off that corruption before you head back to more populated areas.
There really is no excuse to get caught with corruption if you don't want to. It is always going to be your decisions that lead to that ever happening.
The system very much is a case of the best/smartest player will win.
Be that player and you'll be fine.
GM's/Game designers are trying to minimise the griefing content in their game.
Can they eliminate it all? No, never.
Would there be something in their Terms of Use? Most likely anything considered continued harassment could be dealt with by a GM.
It's all part and parcel of playing a MMO. If you are consumed by worrying about what ifs, or potential problems in any MMO, I'd suggest you just play a solo game instead.
Kudo's to them trying to design a game that maximises the gameplay experience for all players, pvp or pve or otherwise.
And if they are in a party with 7 other people who are staying a respectable range away so you either don't see them (in this game, your render distance seems to fluctuate determined by your computer specs and the amount of things you need to render on screen, as stated by Steven, so we don't know if being 100 feet away just makes you invisible or not) or don't notice them as being in the same group as the griefer?
What do you do then? You are basically forced into a state of not being able to play the game.
In my experience, griefers only grief where it is made easy to do so. As I said before, I'm sure there will be an acceptable terms of use agreement for the game that will allow players who feel they are being griefed outside of the corruption system, can make a GM submission to be reviewed.
A griefer either fucks with someone so much they stop playing the game or go afk in a city/whatever to avoid you and gets satisfaction from that, or forces you into a situation where you are now corrupt and they and their band of non-combatant friends can now kill you and steal 400% of your resources and your gear.
It's a win/win for griefers until enough reports have flooded a GM to respond. And even then, a GM might not do anything and decide that it's fine. So people get punished for playing the game (pvping), but not punished for being an annoying shit and actively destroying systems in the game and ruining a player's experience.
I've been in situations in MMOs where I've seen someone in 1 spot killing the same players over and over for like 12 hours. People are weird and it will happen. It will especially happen to players who have something to lose or popular youtubers/streamers.