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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
If they're getting attacked "more" by griefers then that means the corruption system isn't strong handed enough - that simple. The corruption system is actually in place to protect these other 90 people in your example above. It's not the job of players "not flagging" to offer some protective blanked onto others by way of commonality.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
The 10/90 split was used as an example, and as I said later on, the more people flag as combatant, the worse things get for those that don't.
Your suggestion that this would make things 90v1 is also misplaced, it was you that defined a hunting ground earlier as something that would take potentially 15 minutes to cross. Clearly, this would mean that the vast majority of players in this area won't even know there is PvP happening, let alone be inclined to participate - unless of course you want to change your definition of a hunting ground to assist your current argument.
Your point about them being attacked more meaning the corruption system isn't working is also not accurate - though this is only assuming you accept the basic premise of math.
If I am that player that is going to attack and kill someone for profit, I will do so with the understanding that I can kill a specific number of non-combatants, and am willing to accept the penalties of that.
Remember, the corruption system is not intended to stop people from attacking one or two people.
So, if I enter that hunting ground that you have defined with 100 people, where most can't see the others, then I will specifically look for solo non-combatants to attack, specifically ones that are in an area around a resource I would have use for.
Now, if I assume half of the players I attack will flag up to defend themselves, that means I am going to attack 4 players. This means each player in the hunting ground has a 4% chance to be attacked. Note that if we don't make this assumption, the percentage will be lower, but it will still go up in the following manner - this step is to try and get a realistic example going, rather than being something that materially alters the result.
Now if we take that same scenario, but assume there are 10 people in the area that are flagged as combatant via your toggle, I am now going to attack 4 players out of 90, rather than 4 players out of 100. This means each player now has a 4.44% chance of being attacked, which is higher than 4%, even though the corruption system is still perfoeming it's role perfectly well.
If we were to assume that 20 players were flagged, that percent chance for the remaining player is now 5%, and again, the more people flagged, the higher the chances are of non-combatants being attacked.
Your last thought about it not being the "job" of players to offer protective blankets and such - you are right, it isn't their job. It is the job, in part, of the flagging system - which is what you are trying to alter.
I didn’t answer because it has literally no bearing on the discussion. It doesn’t matter if you choose to stay purple for 30minutes or if you never turn green. The presence of a toggle, the proposed intention behind the toggle, means that purple indicates someone willing to fight back.
The obvious logical conclusion after it’s established that players who flag purple will fight back, is that players who do not flag purple probably will not want to fight back.
It shifts the entire atmosphere from “Should I try to attack that gatherer and take their stuff? Is it worth it to take the corruption if I’m able to 100-0 them? Can I take them if they turn and fight?” and “They’re already flagged, maybe that means I caught them with low resources. Where’s the person they were fighting?” to “Hm they’re purple, I’d only get half the stuff even if I do 100-0 them and I know they’ll probably fight back” and “Hell yeah a green, should be easy pickings. If they were good at fighting they’d probably be flagged purple.”
A toggle removes all the context from the flagging system, which offers fairly substantial information when it isn’t the result of a button press, but of actual behavior of the player.
I get what you're saying there, but couldn't it also introduce:
"Hm, they're purple, so they're obviously expecting to lose so they're trying to protect their fragile loot. Easy pickings."
or
"Hm, they're green, so they know they can defend their loot. They must be a skilled PvPer."
From my perspective (as I have been making this same argument for a while), I don't see this happening.
People are not very likely to attempt a double bluff like this, especially not if they actually have something to lose.
If someone is not very good at PvP, and would expect to lose any potential encounter that may be forced on them, their best defence is the corruption system. While it won't work every time, if people in the general area know that killing the player in question will always result in corruption, they are less likely to attack in the first place. The player in question will likely know this, and will not want to flag up to remove that protection.
Anyone that knows this player will look at the fact they have flagged and see nothing other than free loot.
Sure they could possibly maybe mean the opposite of what their toggled state implies, but the majority of cases aren’t going to be double-bluffing like that. All you end up with is players being afraid to stay green because they know it sends a message that they don’t intend to fight back.
If there isn’t a toggle, and you spot a Combatant, you know they’ve been in combat recently, you know they’re willing to fight to either defend or take a resource, and you can surmise that some of their cooldowns are probably still down from the fight they flagged up in.
If you spot a Non-Combatant, you know they have not been in combat recently, you know that they are very likely full health and have all cooldowns ready, and you cannot be sure if they will be eager, reluctant, or unwilling to participate in PvP.
If a toggle exists, none of the above inferences can be made. There would be no way to draw any meaningful information from a player’s current status because it would have been completely detached from player behavior.
It appears that Intrepid has went to great lengths to limit the inferences you can make by simply looking at a player to determine if you should attack them or not already, it seems like the less inferences you can make because of a toggle would be better for a system that has intentionally hidden information from you for that reason.
The reality is there will be such a small percentage of people intentionally griefing that your argument fails on this premise. The amount of pvp the non-combatant would likely avoid in situations where people freely toggle combatant mode would out weigh any additional risk they might encounter from random griefers. It seems illogical and impractical that anyone looking for easy/free kills would subject themselves to corruption if combatants are available and a target exists that they can kill. In turn this does nothing but protect the non combatants further through the process of risk for corruption.
What would a combatant toggle have to do with this if you're specifically seeking out a "solo" player around a resource? How would 10 combatants in that zone impact your decision to do this?
How does the percentage adjust based on your example it's the same 4 players you're attacking (solo players at resources you want). Lets assume this and adjust your targets. Instead of the 4 players all being non-combatant now 1 out of the 4 solo players area combatants (20/100 approximation). If you had no risk of corruption do you attack the combatant or just the 3 non combatants? Now even if you attack all 4 of these players now only 3 of them are non-combatant so the percentage of non combatants you attack in a zone of 100 actually decreases.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
After 12 pages on this subject here are my observations.
1) You can't assume if someone green or purple wants to fight or will defend themselves before they do so. If a green fight back, no corruption for you. If a green doesn't fight back, either you get corruption or stop your attack and leave. No corruption for you in that case.
2) Bluffing (single/double and more) about your intention will happen. People will try exploit the current expectations and conventions to align with their goals. Greens are perceive as easy targets and get more attacked? Those who want to be attacked will stay green as much as possible. Having a toggle will only make this "strategy" simpler. People tend to leave the greens alone? People will stay green.
3) As much as some pretend that death penalties in random pvp give it meaning and that consequences make it more thrilling, there are so many threads and pages that show how unpalatable it is for others. It will always be tough for the devs to find the balance for their vision.
That's not a logical conclusion. You're making an specious inference based on the false assumption that a purple flag that fights back is mutually exclusive to a green flag that won't fight back.
There isn't a logical relationship between player 1 who chooses to flag purple and player 2 who chooses to flag green. One possible outcome is that purple will fight back and green will not, but those are not the only outcomes, and therefore can't be a conclusion.
There's always plenty of pie to go around. The cake people are over there somewhere doing something forgettable.
How dare you belittle the power of cake. It may be pie season but cake will have it's day again.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Hahahahahahahahaha! I'm sending that to everyone I know!
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Did you not read the word “probably” in my post? The entire premise of a toggle, as stated in the original post, is so players seeking PvP can flag up 24/7 to indicate to others they will fight back and invite attackers.
If you don’t agree that would be the purpose of a toggle, then you’ve just divorced flags from player behavior for literally no reason.
This means that all of the remaining players, that 90 that are left, are all more likely to be attacked simply due to not flagging.
I'm not sure how clearer I can be on this point, it is basic middle school level statistics. Because I am not just talking about me, I am talking about a lot of people that will act in the same way.
While I may want a specific resource, others that are of the same general mindset may want a different resource. This means that all players near a resource (essentially all players) are equally valid targets to someone that is hunting players. The only peopel that are not are those that are flagged as combatants.
Again, this is middle school statistics. I don't follow.
There are not just 4 solo players, I am just stopping after 4 attacks, as that is how many kills I am statistially likely to have before I attain the level of corruption I am happy with accepting.
In a non-dungeon area, there are likely to be a majority of players running around solo or in a duo. Of those 100 players, it is likely that 50+ of them are solo - whereas if I go in to a dungeon that has 100 players, it is likely that 98+ of them are in groups.
It seems that you are missing the very first aspect in the target acquisition process here - which is excluding all combatants. If I enter an area that has 4 solo players, and only three of then are non-combatants, then there are three targets - if my aim is PvP for profit.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what it is you are saying in this last part. If so, feel free to reword it to be clearer and I'll have another look at answering it for you.
I did. I also read "obvious logical conclusion," which it wasn't and isn't. It's possible that green won't fight back, but there is no logical relationship between purple fighting back and green fighting back. I'm still in favor of a combatant flag.
Someone flagged as combatant is someone that probably just won a PvP encounter. This means there is a guarantee that this player is open to PvP, and is at least not the worst on the server as they just beat someone else that thought themselves good enough to flag up to try and take them on - or that flagged up to reduce death penalties - in which case this player is someone that is confident enough in their PvP abilities to attack others for profit.
Now, while any one given geen player may also fit this role, it is also true that all players that are not overly keen or competent at PvP will also be green.
Thus, statistically, the ratio of people that fight back between combatants and non-combatants - with a large enough sample size - will be markedly different. This is true desipite the individual player, as statistics don't much care about the individual.
At best you can make some good guesses. Which is fine, but they are still guesses.
It is the logical conclusion when the OP specifically states that the intent behind a toggle is to indicate themselves willing to PvP by flagging purple. If there was no inherent implications behind a purple flag vs green, there wouldn’t even be a desire for a toggle (except as penalty avoidance). The inherent implications is that purple is willing to PvP, and a green is less or not willing to PvP.
Please lay out some valid reasons why flag state should be severed from player behavior. What benefit does that bring?
Honestly, it's just not interesting parsing your arguments. @Tyrantor has much more energy for that than I do.
All you need to understand is what the bulk of players are likely to do, and this is something that can easily be arrived at as a logical conclusion.
@Noaani you spent 1.5 years+ playing a MMO as a solo player, in a faction by yourself (in a 3 fraction system) I'm unclear where you garner any credibility in determining what the bulk of any MMO player base will do. Where do you draw this knowledge from? You're usually on the minority side of every conversation on these forums to date that I've seen. Yet you claim to understand your fellow gamers so well. It's quite an interesting self aware perspective you have.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
First of all, that equates to 7.5% of my total MMO play time. As you know, the bulk of the rest was either in or running top end raid guilds - you can't run a top end raid guild without knowing what those in your guild want. Not successfully, at least.
Second, just because I was in a faction by myself for half of the time I spent in one of the games I have played, that doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention to what people were doing. If anything, I was paying more attention. I knew who had land around me, what faction they were in, what time they were online, what crops they were growing, what the cycle for those crops were for that zone, and thus when they were likely to be at their farm. I was paying very close attention to what everyone around me was doing, far more than I would have if I had a guild or a faction to back me up.
It is an interesting perspective you have there that a player that is literally all by themselves, surrounded by absolutely nothing but potentially hostile players with nothing at all to lose from attacking me would for some reason just ignore those around them.
A really interesting perspective.
If I had have done that, I don't think I would have lasted more than a month as a pirate, to be honest. Knowing what those around me wanted out of the game - and specifically out of the time they spent in the area around my land - is what allowed me to farm heavily contested resources.
In all discussions you and I have had, you have assumed the bulk of players would act exactly like you.
In those same discussions, you don't even know how I would act, because I have not explained how I would act. I have explained how the bulk of players are likely to act, which is usually not at all the same as how I would.
It's cos he's keeping the pie for himself.
They were probably a green that got attacked, fought back, and their attacker then broke off the fight to find an easier victim.
See? I can present pure guesses as almost certain facts, too!
See, this is winning PvP. A win in open PvP doesn't specifically need a kill, all it needs is for the end result to be as you want. If you are farming mobs or resources and someone attacks you, a win is any situation in which you can carry on farming.
Since someone else has already attempted and failed to attack and kill this player, it is a safe assumption that there is an easier target to be found (such as the player that attacked them), and so the flagging system where it is based on your actions is working as intended.
In a binary world of black and white, you'd be right. But "Win" and "Lose" aren't the only options. There's also the "Stalemate" and the "Draw". Both players hitting a couple of times and breaking off combat would be the Draw. It doesn't mean that the defender is a good PvPer, as was your argument. It simply means that they chose the lesser death penalties to save their resources. Maybe the attacker was also a poor PvPer and was just chancing their luck, and they're both terrible. As @CROW3 has been trying to point out, there are more variables in this scenario. The world isn't black and white.