The Flaw in the flagging system

Competition over in-game resources is inevitable, that much is obvious. If two players want to compete for resources, and they both flag for pvp, the system works fine.

The main problem is the availability of Karma Bombing as counter-play to PKing. Generally speaking, running around taking mob spawns to disrupt you (so you either have to kill them or leave), or once you've flagged red the first time, running into your abilities so that you either end up killing them again or have to stop grinding. This happened all the time in Black Desert, even when there was a 1% penalty to your exp bar on death. Then the devs of that game made the brilliant decision to remove the exp entirely but kept the low karma penalties like gear loss in the game.

This resulted in an even more toxic environment where the meta was to lower your opponents HP and stun them so that mobs would kill them in your place.

Ultimately it would be best if AoC cultivated a combatant culture where death penalties stayed low and people respected the winner enough to leave, but in my experience this is not usually the case in MMOs. There are probably solutions to these problems but it's hard to say without experiencing it first hand. For some examples that have been brought up in BDO: no karma penalty for killing the same person repeatedly within a short duration, respawn points moving further and further away on repeated deaths (eventually, spawning at a city rather than the local node), etc.

It hardly seems fair to punish pking to the degree of gear loss or severe dampening. There are plenty of other PvP scenarios in the game that will surely have no penalty such as under cutting prices, which happen outside of the already penalty-free scenarios of node, guild, castle wars etc.

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Elo

Just my opinion as someone with very little pvp experience: I like the concept of karma. I know that if someone kills me red vs green, I will immediately run from the respawn, wait for him to be at reduced hp, then exact righteous vengeance as green vs red. I guess that's what karma bombing must mean.

I would even prefer the karma system to go further. Let's say someone kills me red vs green. Then when I see him a month later and attack green vs green, then I would like if we both automatically become purple (forced purple on him), so if I killed him then no corruption would be given to me for righting the previous wrong. At that point we would be even, so the next fight would cause corruption. It's just a thought and opinion, I guess it may over-complicate the system. I just worry that under the current system, when I see him a month later and get righteous vengeance. If I turn red, the people standing around will assume I am the bad guy.

Again, I am pve raider. Consider me the pvp novice who stepped into the pvp adult discussion.

maouw

akabear wrote: »

...

Stating the obvious, early AoC will be very different to the later game. I think earlier, players that are peaceful to aggressive will vie to find their position in the world so there will be a distinct lack of sense both ways.

But as players decide their bias and create both their position and reputation in the world be that as individuals or by clan or node then things will become more predictable.

...

But never really an issue once a feel for the game was established

How was the flagging system introduced to new players in L2?

It seems like a lot of people are alarmed when they first hear of it - would it be more helpful to introduce it to new players after they're a bit more accustomed to the world?

Warth

maouw wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

...

Stating the obvious, early AoC will be very different to the later game. I think earlier, players that are peaceful to aggressive will vie to find their position in the world so there will be a distinct lack of sense both ways.

But as players decide their bias and create both their position and reputation in the world be that as individuals or by clan or node then things will become more predictable.

...

But never really an issue once a feel for the game was established

How was the flagging system introduced to new players in L2?

It seems like a lot of people are alarmed when they first hear of it - would it be more helpful to introduce it to new players after they're a bit more accustomed to the world?

@maouw that's kinda understandable though.
Most of the people, that haven't experience it or a similar system themselves come from games like WoW, where its actively encouraged to grief the other faction, where no repurcussions for doing so exist or alternatively they don't/barely have any experience at all, as they have primarily played on pve servers in the past.

People are afraid of things they don't know. There isn't anything more natural than that. Being open minded and trying new things was actively discouraged for an overwhelming part of human evolution. Not liking things they haven't experienced and staying in the safe confines of what we know (the lizard brain) is exactly what kept us alive for so long.

akabear

Age of Conan at beta was just an open season pk madness. Never played past that time.

L2`s karma system changed over various updates. At beta the system was a brutal introduction to the mmorpgs. After playing a little of Ultima Online, and Osheron`s Call, I was not so prepared for what was to come.

At beta there was potential for some or full drop of ALL your gear upon death, pk or mob.
Later this was reduced to only drop on pk death (or Pvp, I cannot remember now)

As an early Pve`er only at the beginning of beta, and early game, I recall pleading for gear to be returned after being pk`d as it was a game killer. To lose your gear and not have the means to replace it with the likelihood or having to re-roll, I pleaded hard.

But later it was softened considerably, and players that would engage in pvp / pk`ing would reduce the valuable gear in their inventory for worthless to further reduce the chance of loss of important gear

Later playing with a clan that did seem to cross paths with other clans, there were wars. I at first tried to stay out of it, but slowly had to and then slowly found that it was actually fun and later sport! Never good at it and the xp loss was really hard, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing a couple of rounds during a lunch break with an enemy clan similar to "marco polo"! Then spent the evenings making up the xp loss for the day!

Working from home, I had 2pcs`s with one pc open with L2 running and a random scout just sitting there..
I had my main fully buffed ready to go, logged off.
When an enemy clan that we were at war with passed by my toon, I would drop work (if able) and then log on my buffed main toon and chase them down.
Kept the enemy on their toes, like they did our side!

Fast travel changed everything, I could quietly xp in xp mode and if someone came up to kill me unexpectedly, and I had mobs on me, then it was just a matter of clicking teleport to clan hall.. just had to be quick.

Prior to that, there was way less pvp and pk`ing as the risk of staying out in the open red was too high, which is where Ashes will sit, I believe.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

A timer seems like an awful idea. Especially considering there is no toggle so we are technically forced to engage someone to "test" their interest in fighting back in the first place.

As far as I can tell, this is all by design.

Only attack a player if the reason you are attacking them is good enough for you to take on corruption. If you are not willing to take on corruption, don't attack the player.

If you want PvP in general, find it in a manner that isn't subject to corruption.

It's all very simple, and very obvious.

AntVictus

maouw wrote: »

idk man, the main 2 reasons to kill a green are:
you wanna to steal from them - in which case you reap what you sow as far as I'm concerned

you want them to move/leave the area - in which case you can now move/leave the area too

(you got mad and lost your temper - you failing to control anger is not anyone else's problem)

Whose Who's been counting these threads? what are we up to now?

35 ish

Atama

Nightly wrote: »

daveywavey wrote: »

Nightly wrote: »

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. If there is so much hate for PKing why bother putting it in the game at all?

Freedom of choice.

You have the freedom to drop a cinderblock on your foot, but why would you hurt yourself for no reason? Going red is pointless, it's not a choice.

I think you’re not understanding part of the system. Going red will have penalties but so will dying as green. If you attack a green player they have many reasons to fight back and few reasons not to.

If you are attacked while green and die as green you lose double the amount of resources and take on twice the debt than if you fight back, go purple, and then die. Most players are going to opt to fight back because if they win, awesome, they can loot the attacker. If they lose, at least they aren’t dropping as much stuff.

That also means, by the way, that attacking a green player gives you more resources to loot. So there is that attraction. Is it worth the risk? Overall it won’t be because Intrepid doesn’t want rampant PKing, but there will still be the temptation to do it now and then.

You say going red is pointless, like nobody will ever do it. I don’t think you’ve been around enough to see all the people talking about how much they look forward to it, risk and all. It’ll be rare but it will happen.

Dropping a cinder block on your foot is certainly stupid and counterproductive, but if people didn’t do stupid things on purpose just for fun or to test themselves or to try to impress people we’d never have the show Jackass.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

Dropping a cinder block on your foot is certainly stupid and counterproductive, but if people didn’t do stupid things on purpose just for fun or to test themselves or to try to impress people we’d never have the show Jackass.

Some woudl argue the world would be a better place if this were true.

That said, if someone in game pisses me off, whether by their actions around me or by their anoyance in chat, I'll take them out if I see them. To me, the corruption is worth it for that, even moreso than material game is worth it.

Same if I see a player from a guild that has proven itself to be a rival.

I'm also very likely to kill any solo player I see on a pack animal, as why wouldn't I?

There are many, many reasons to kill people in Ashe, even before you get in to the "because it's fun" arguments. Corruption isn't going to stop most of these potential kills, but it will stop players going on rampages, which is good since no one wants to play with murder-hobos.

akabear

It will be interesting to see how the risk will be carried by PvE`er. With the threat to lose half of the resources, those risk adverse in high conflict areas may end up travelling back and forth to town a lot and it may just end up more profitable to become corrupted.

Those gathering very far away from the nearest town or trying to run resources themselves between nodes even more so. (if possible)

But I suspect the feeling will be like that in New World, where you fill your inventory just border of max where your run speed is impacted and run a beeline between cities, avoiding all around through fear of being dropped.

VmanGman

akabear wrote: »

But I suspect the feeling will be like that in New World, where you fill your inventory just border of max where your run speed is impacted and run a beeline between cities, avoiding all around through fear of being dropped.

There is no such feeling in New World. If you're a PvE'er in New World, you just turn off PvP and never have to worry about anything. Not to mention that even if you turn on PvP, you still wouldn't be at risk of losing anything upon death.

Tyrantor

Noaani wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

A timer seems like an awful idea. Especially considering there is no toggle so we are technically forced to engage someone to "test" their interest in fighting back in the first place.

As far as I can tell, this is all by design.

Only attack a player if the reason you are attacking them is good enough for you to take on corruption. If you are not willing to take on corruption, don't attack the player.

If you want PvP in general, find it in a manner that isn't subject to corruption.

It's all very simple, and very obvious.

The point you're leaving out however is that you would only be subject to said corruption should you strike the killing blow per design, what you suggested with a timer would allow the attackee to initiate that killing blow via NPC/Mob and force corruption on the attacker even if they had no intention of killing the player while green.

If corruption is so bad that people won't just do it willy nilly then these two solo players per the example would likely just try to KS the Mobs from each other instead of killing one another or they may ask their friends to come. Adding additional ways to go corrupt while not actually killing people is very simply and obviously not by design of the system.

akabear

vmangman wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

But I suspect the feeling will be like that in New World, where you fill your inventory just border of max where your run speed is impacted and run a beeline between cities, avoiding all around through fear of being dropped.

There is no such feeling in New World. If you're a PvE'er in New World, you just turn off PvP and never have to worry about anything. Not to mention that even if you turn on PvP, you still wouldn't be at risk of losing anything upon death.

Correct, the current iteration does not have this mechanic. In earlier iterations, it was near full loot drop on death.
And when playing off-peak on a new character, with teams of high-level camping outside town, after a few large losses of gear in uncontested pvp the game was unplayable. No ability to fight back, a longer grind to get to a basic level to get minimal gear back and no backup to come in to support.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Tyrantor wrote: »

A timer seems like an awful idea. Especially considering there is no toggle so we are technically forced to engage someone to "test" their interest in fighting back in the first place.

As far as I can tell, this is all by design.

Only attack a player if the reason you are attacking them is good enough for you to take on corruption. If you are not willing to take on corruption, don't attack the player.

If you want PvP in general, find it in a manner that isn't subject to corruption.

It's all very simple, and very obvious.

The point you're leaving out however is that you would only be subject to said corruption should you strike the killing blow per design, what you suggested with a timer would allow the attackee to initiate that killing blow via NPC/Mob and force corruption on the attacker even if they had no intention of killing the player while green.

I didnt6 forget that, that is why I said don't attack unless you are willing to take on the corruption, rather than don't kill unless you are willing to take on the corruption.

Because, assuming this system is what Intrepid end up going with, that is exactly what it will mean.

It is also perfectly fair. If you attack a player, you are making a decision that affects them. It is quite likely that they would have preferred to carry on doing what they were doing, rather than having to fight you. Now, you absolutely can say that in Ashes, that is just how it is, when they started their activity, they knew they could be attacked. I'd even agree with you in that.

However, assuming this is the system they go with, the reverse is 100% true as well. When you attack a player, they may run off and get killed by a mob even if you perhaps would have preferred to not get corruption. However, when you attacked that player, you knew it could happen in exactly the same way that when that player started the activity they were doing they had to have known they could be attacked.

You are able to force a thing they don't want on them, they are able to force a thing you don't want on you. You both made decisions with known potential outcomes.

Explain how that isn't fair?

Tyrantor

It seems unrealistic to consider every time you attack someone that it's risking corruption. The flagging system is "designed" so that the person who gets attack can make a conscious decision to fight back thus giving the original attacker the power to back off or continue a kill on a green player. You would only be willing to go corrupt on players you intend to kill outright regardless of their reaction to your attack. If your assumption is every player has 1 health point and you're risking corruption by attacking them, that is a very thin view for this discussion.

Songcaller

It is not realistic for a green player to assault a purple player if the green player has missing health. It can be debated at what position of health a green player would take the bait, however, the common point would be no balance in 1vs1, hard counters in 1vs1 and imbalance of health 1vs1.

It is most likely that he who starts the fight will end the fight. It is also most likely that he who starts the fight won't choose corruption. It would be debatable if a green player will intentionally suicide to speed up corruption, but, it is also conceivable that the player threatened with a suicide could nuke the NPCs prior to striking the green player.

There are multiple facets of a PvP fight with many parameters that could be stated. All in all the system should be rather fluent and a pleasure to enjoy. It would pay to be more aggressive than some players would want you to be. It is better to obtain a reputation as a good pvper than a reputation as a ganker though.

You will have PvP options outside of the flagging system. If you want to PvP where the flagging system applies then it is totally realistic to expect the threat of corruption. You can't butter the bread in a different way, if you fight where flags apply then all flags must apply in the flaggable area.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

It seems unrealistic to consider every time you attack someone that it's risking corruption.

It's not every time, it is only every time outside of arenas, node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, node wars, caravans and other times the developers opt to not include the corruption system.

As the two of us have discussed in the past, that is because Intrepid want PvP focused players to focus that PvP in to these areas. They don't want to prevent you from attacking any player, any time, they just want you to focus on those other situations.

If your assumption is every player has 1 health point and you're risking corruption by attacking them, that is a very thin view for this discussion.

That isn't an assumption being made.

The assumption being made is that if you force an action on a player by attacking them, they can force an action on you. If it gets to this stage - where you have attacked a player, they refused to fight back so you stopped fighting them in order to prevent corruption, so they decided to suicide in order to force corruption on you - you always then have the option of preventing that from happening by attacking the mobs the player is trying to use to kill themself. Remember, you don't need to prevent them dying, you just need to prevent them dying while this timer that we are assuming will eventually be in the game is running. As soon as that timer runs out, leave the player to die at the hands of all the mobs they pulled in order to try and force corruption on you.

It is all player agency. Without a system like this, you are the only one that has a decision to make - whether or not to attack that player. With this system, you not only have that choice, but you then have the choice of trying to attack them in a location that is absent of mobs that he could suicide with (which will increase the likelihood of him fighting back), so already there is more interesting gameplay dynamics at play - before that first player even understands that you are about to attack them.

Tyrantor

Lol I'm not sure if anyone else thinks this sounds dumb.

"You can prevent the player from suiciding by doing some PvE"

If someone chooses to kill their own character that's their own stupid decision.

Real player agency would involve a toggle allowing us to mark our characters combatant not some suicide/PvE stopgap.

Songcaller

It comes down to tactics and the killer instinct. You can be half-hearted and dance around the issue with a toggle (toggles aren't a thing), or you can go with the adrenaline and hammer all involved.

If you are a PvPer you would know that NPCs get involved in PvP a lot of the times. You can't take a Grind Spot without some NPCs getting involved for a start. Most PvP fights in a grind zone happen when someone nukes someone else's NPCs. The NPCs die, a person doesn't get the loot and BAM PvP Fight ensues.

Even if a toggle existed (It doesn't), you would still find some players would rather die to a NPC than lose to a player. It is debatable if the loot will be obtained by the player, it is debatable if the survivor would become corrupted.

If they take my earlier suggestion and add Timers instead of Last Hit Wonder, then it would mean groups of players will become corrupted too, rather than the last person to hit the green alone.

Noaani

Tyrantor wrote: »

Lol I'm not sure if anyone else thinks this sounds dumb.

"You can prevent the player from suiciding by doing some PvE"

If someone chooses to kill their own character that's their own stupid decision.

Real player agency would involve a toggle allowing us to mark our characters combatant not some suicide/PvE stopgap.

Straight up no.

A toggle is only of use for people looking for PvP for the sake of PvP, which is not the idea of hte corruption system.

Anyone out playing the game as the game is intended (PvP'ing over resources, spots, because you dislike a guild or person, etc) is in the exact same position, with or without a toggle.

The whole suicide by mob thing is very much an edge case of an edge case if this timer were bought in. It is in no way the normal way the game would be played. If the timer were in the game, people simply wouldn't attack another player unless they were willing to take on corruption, so if the person doesn't fight back, the attacker would simply carry on killing them.

Noaani

Neurath wrote: »

If they take my earlier suggestion and add Timers instead of Last Hit Wonder, then it would mean groups of players will become corrupted too, rather than the last person to hit the green alone.

They could have this happen, or they could make the timer only apply to the last player character to hit.

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