PVP Looting and drops - What can we learn from the greats?

The idea of risk and reward is addicting, fun and what makes long term video games great. Lets look at some of the giants that have stood the test of time. Entropia, EVE, Runescape are all economy based games that revolve around the idea of risk and reward. We still see these games today even though they are instantly recognizable as relics from the past graphically and mechanically.

This is a lesson we should learn, keep the idea of risk and reward apart of the game in almost every aspect. I love the idea of caravans and the the potential for dropping a piece of your loot if you die. Here's how I think this should be changed based on my experience playing these games.

If you see my post on leveling earlier, I explain how we can create a game where a new player has a very small chance at killing an experienced player. With this idea in mind I want to talk about a different type of risk and reward.

If I kill a mob with some leather armor on it and a sword, I expect to see that leather armor and sword on the ground. Keeping continuity like this in a game is so important for immersion and enjoyment. (see my post on mount pockets and how to change that). Make inventory management and looting more interesting by removing alot of made up player storage and moving the item storage system to your mount.

I'll introduce this with a story since these are forums and I don't know why i'm taking this so seriously.
I was drunk at 3am last night and hopped on oldscool runescape thinking that the game would finally be dead and I could go into the player combat area and get high end loot. I was wrong. Every moment of every day on 200+ worlds, people risk 500+k (a little less than one dollers worth) of their own money to try and loot these monsters.

Out of thousands of activities, some more fruitful and less risky, people are out there 24/7 risking for reward. The economy is setup in a way where crafters create gear for these players just as fast as they lose it and wealth is acquired naturally by every player over time.

Make all but one or two valuable items drop on death in PvP and see my post on gear to understand how this would work. You could have armor breaking easily so that the market doesn't get flooded or drop as damaged if you so choose, but make the risk high so that players have to make a conscious decision on whether or not to take their good items or not.

You could augment this ability by having a peaceful node or have an area of influence where players have less incentive to fight (ie wandering knights, bounties ect)

This would make you think about your gear choices alot more, you would weigh risk and reward and determine an appropriate risk and power level for your activity. Think about castle seiges where the defending team is stacked with gear and loot. You and your group of 5 guilds could all have little risk and try to overwhelm. You may not be more powerful but the numbers are on your side and the reward is substantially higher than the risk.

Alternatively, you guild could slaughter hundreds of players and maintain an advantage as you mercilessly kill noobs. You might then see a few targets in the crowd that are threats and have to think about how you would address them

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SSRogue

Borus wrote: »

The idea of risk and reward is addicting, fun and what makes long term video games great. Lets look at some of the giants that have stood the test of time. Entropia, EVE, Runescape are all economy based games that revolve around the idea of risk and reward. We still see these games today even though they are instantly recognizable as relics from the past graphically and mechanically.

I completely agree! I will never fight to incentivize griefing but there should be rewards for people going out and taking risks for those greater rewards and those risks are other players.

I have a thread discussing as much, and there is another one talking about improving the bounty hunter system to make corrupted players and bounty hunters a big deal. I also personally think the religious system can have fun with things as well.

tugowar

Wtf is Entropia

Nagash

tugowar wrote: »

Wtf is Entropia

The most expensive MMO in the world where you can buy planets for real money

mcknightrider

Nagash wrote: »

tugowar wrote: »

Wtf is Entropia

The most expensive PONZI SCHEME in the world where you can buy planets for real money

Fixed that for you. They really need a name for these "games". They're straight up scams.

Nagash

mcknightrider wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

tugowar wrote: »

Wtf is Entropia

The most expensive PONZI SCHEME in the world where you can buy planets for real money

Fixed that for you. They really need a name for these "games". They're straight up scams.

I mean you're not wrong

Borus

Sure, Entropia is a scam but the other two are not. Surviving for 10+ years with minimal updates seems like a good likable long term game to me

Feloki

Borus wrote: »

Sure, Entropia is a scam but the other two are not. Surviving for 10+ years with minimal updates seems like a good likable long term game to me

Are you referring to runescape when you say minimal updates? Its over 18 years old and is arguably the most updated game in mmo history.

ogre

Borus wrote: »

Make all but one or two valuable items drop on death in PvP and see my post on gear to understand how this would work. You could have armor breaking easily so that the market doesn't get flooded or drop as damaged if you so choose, but make the risk high so that players have to make a conscious decision on whether or not to take their good items or not.

This would almost certainly turn an immense number of people away from the game, escpecially given that almost the entire in-game world is open to PvP. A loot system like that in PvP would lessen the broad appeal that AoC seems to have and would incentivize killing every other player on sight as a guild/zerg. You don't see this problem in games like osrs because PvP is generally relegated to the wilderness and arenas.

I would rather see a much more forgiving open world PvP looting system than what you're suggesting as it would be more tolerable to a larger number of players. I would like the game pull and maintain enough subscriptions to succeed in making enough revenue for future content and expansions.

The devs need to cater to the 99% of players who aren't hardcore PvP'ers or world first raiders while also providing incentives and a content drip that will satiate the hardcore audience. Things such as arenas(perhaps with stakes as you mentioned) and very challenging endgame content that many players won't see would be a good start in regards to this content.

CaptnChuck

SSRogue wrote: »

Borus wrote: »

The idea of risk and reward is addicting, fun and what makes long term video games great. Lets look at some of the giants that have stood the test of time. Entropia, EVE, Runescape are all economy based games that revolve around the idea of risk and reward. We still see these games today even though they are instantly recognizable as relics from the past graphically and mechanically.

I completely agree! I will never fight to incentivize griefing but there should be rewards for people going out and taking risks for those greater rewards and those risks are other players.

I have a thread discussing as much, and there is another one talking about improving the bounty hunter system to make corrupted players and bounty hunters a big deal. I also personally think the religious system can have fun with things as well.

No. Your idea about improving the bounty hunter system was bad and the reason it was bad was because you would be indirectly encouraging griefing. Your fun should never come at the expense of another's. Plain and simple.

CaptnChuck

If you take a risk and don't succeed, you should be punished. But if that punishment is too excessive, then players will NEVER take risks. On the other hand, if that punishment isn't significant enough, then players will always take risks and it won't really be a risk anymore. Its important to find that right balance.

What you're suggesting right now, is the former. Players will NEVER PvP if they can drop gear on death. The MMO community is already heavily PvE favored. Implementing such a system would just drive them further away from PvPing.

You've made several suggestions within just a few days of joining the forums, and all of them have been terrible. Just calm down, and let Intrepid do their thing.

SSRogue

CaptnChuck wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

Borus wrote: »

The idea of risk and reward is addicting, fun and what makes long term video games great. Lets look at some of the giants that have stood the test of time. Entropia, EVE, Runescape are all economy based games that revolve around the idea of risk and reward. We still see these games today even though they are instantly recognizable as relics from the past graphically and mechanically.

I completely agree! I will never fight to incentivize griefing but there should be rewards for people going out and taking risks for those greater rewards and those risks are other players.

I have a thread discussing as much, and there is another one talking about improving the bounty hunter system to make corrupted players and bounty hunters a big deal. I also personally think the religious system can have fun with things as well.

No. Your idea about improving the bounty hunter system was bad and the reason it was bad was because you would be indirectly encouraging griefing. Your fun should never come at the expense of another's. Plain and simple.

How little faith you have in the game devs to not know the difference between a person defending a node or a corrupted player only killing other corrupted players or greens who attack them vs a higher level player killing a low-level nonparticipant.

It has been stated in many threads that Conversations just like this one are actually reaching the devs and there will be more clarification soon. As for that, yes punish griefers and pks but don't assume all bad guys are the same and if they do implement a stat tracker for how you gain corruption then I'd be willing to bet we see some more fun pvp things for bad guys vs good guys in the future when they finish everything else they have planned.

Jexz

I don't expect this to happen. But I would love a PvP server just as much as people want a PvE server.

Full item loot but substantially higher drop rates and no corruption system.

Server would probably be a ghost town though. It's not that people are scared of losing everything. They just can't handle all the excitement and emotions that it brings. Higher highs lower lows.

SSRogue

Jexz wrote: »

I don't expect this to happen. But I would love a PvP server just as much as people want a PvE server.

Full item loot but substantially higher drop rates and no corruption system.

Server would probably be a ghost town though.

There really is no need for a full dedicated server when more event log tracking is a viable way to track actions and consequences to reinforce the current system and allow a distinction between different types of player vs player interactions.

Much like in our real world, just focus on enforcing the laws that do exists and properly handle them and we won't need new systems. I have heard posts like this are getting attention and will be addressed sooner than later so that is very cool.

Borus

what about a system where certain areas carried more risk than others, like hotspots. Maybe a node might have a way to make land safer.

Triple

Honestly, I think PvP should reward more gold or monetary reward in some way. PVE gets the Armor and Weapon drops and both can get armor and weapons from crafting. Yes, Pvp takes skill and it should get a decent reward and not just for the playing enjoyment. PVE play gets the other plus the playing enjoyment so, to me that kind of balances out.

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