Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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 you want to prevent PvP with boredom, why work so much, to implement an island and boring quests?
You can just make a black screen with a counter and only when that expires, the player can play again.
You can even make it a mini game to be sure they stay in front of the screen.
The purpose of the game is to be fun.
Else players leave the game completely in such places and after a few months if they have a tentative to return, they may log out again and never return.
If the premise is that the player caused unfun / grief to other players, then the game should prevent that somehow. For the time being, the mechanics which will do that are the corruption and the bounty hunters.
The problem is that no matter how the corruption is balanced (or your rule to send them to the prison island), some will complain that is either too harsh or to lenient. What do you do then? You tell players to find another game?
The biggest weakness of the corruption system and such algorithms is that they assume players are the same and Steven can find a magic number to balance the game well. What if the player being hunted and killed was having fun himself too? What if he was actually friend with the hunter and they agreed to this activity?
Pain threshold
The intensity at which a stimulus begins to evoke pain varies from individual to individual and for a given individual over time.
I think Steven realized this and will make the corruption strong enough so the game will feel like a PvE game and adds these deep ocean and treasure hunting auto flag PvP areas. Then players will decide how they feel and if they want to enter or not.
This is a great point---I'm not one to rage during pvp, myself. I could sit through multiple losing battlegrounds and not lose my shit. I realize not everyone is like that though...so I guess people like us just need to be flagged as a combatant in the different zones.
There's something about arenas and mechanics like them that are just so sterile and staged. The biggest thrills come from world pvp...on the giving and receiving end
So you say that opt-in PvP is better?
Your argument is what is used on New World forums too: "If you want pvp just set the flag on"
In New World, if I opt-out, other players cannot attack me at all.
In Ashes, I can't opt-out of being attacked by other players. I can choose to become a Combatant if I want to halve the death penalties and/or not give my attacker Corruption.
People who want to have fun with PvP against friends will probably hang out on the Open Seas.
Also, there are Caravans, Castle Sieges and Node Sieges.
Unfortunately, a whole lot of assumptions that I believe I didn't hinted too. A shame for the amount of words you put into it. Why not at least try a bit more to understand the idea? Maybe asking if you're not sure. For your info, it doesnt feel good to me if you trash the idea like this, especially noting you made multiple faulty assumptions reflecting an unwillingness to even trying to understand. Do with it as you will; and you will I can imagine.
Btw, I don't get what you mean with corruption balancing being a problem because all players are treated the same within the algorithm. Isn't it so that if friends would want to pvp they could both flag for it; formally in-game agree? On the other side; whilst someone grieving will become corrupted, the player unwantingly being attacked wil not isn't it? I don't see how the already proposed corruption system treats players the same way. Also, imo there will always be players not liking a game and leaving. More the norm than a problem I believe. In the end, the game will be what it will be; ultimately decided on by Steven and the Intrepid team. Like Steven said; it isnt going to be for everyone anyways. I really already like the corruption system as it was presented and was only sharing some idea/fantasy on maybe how it could be expanded by adding some lore/depth to corruption mechanics.
I think yes! Great idea. Certain perks and risks for people in that town but yes.
I mean that for me it is important to have potential enemies around me who might attack and kill me. It will not bother me and I am looking forward to those encounters. I cannot say if I will always fight back. Depends on circumstances and mood, how tired I am etc. But I do not want my attacker to be sent to a prison (island or not) as a punishment.
I imagine for other players want that and will feel good to put an instant punishment upon the attacker.
That is what I mean. Not everybody wants that.
I don't want the attackers to be punished because then they will not attack anymore and then the game becomes a PvE game.
I don't want a PvE game with potential PvP which nobody uses.
Yes that is the opt-in flagging which exist in New World too.
That is not a risk. It is a decision, a voluntary agreement.
I want to be attacked against my will, even when I do not expect it.
...
I understood your idea. You could improve it by adding as condition the bounty hunter. The possibility to be sent to that island could happen when the BH defeats the corrupted player.
Sending the corrupted away before that, takes the job and the potential reward of the BH away.
But if the BH got the items of the corrupted player, then why punish that player further?
second that!
OK. I just need what your PC's name will be, and the server you will play on
I was actually responding to the specific statement "What if the player being hunted and killed was having fun himself too? What if he was actually friend with the hunter and they agreed to this activity?" to point out that those players are uninhibited from fighting one another by Ashes always on PVP and corruption system.
I hope they add more auto flagged pvp areas on land too. And zones where the corruption penalties are half from what we normally have near cities.
I cant read your mind. how I'm I supposed to know you don't want to pvp until I attack you? what if I just rng crit and 1 shot you? how I'm I supposed to know you had no chance until we fight? what about a castle siege, should we not steam roll our opponents because they have no chance of winning and that's toxic? i also don't consent you attacking me while I'm transporting goods using the caravan system, because I don't want to pvp. you are toxic!
what about me running towards a tree or a mining node and you teleporting and taking it away from me? i didn't consent to that. toxic! or you coming to where I'm gaming with a ranged character and killing the mobs before my tank can get close and kill them. that's griefing!!!! toxiccc
what if I'm playing league and I have a weak early jungler. you invading me with lee sin and killing me is toxic cuz I have no chance!!!
I believe you are missing the point. The people who would be considered toxic in this scenario would be the pkers. If your killing a green who clearly isn't trying to fight back then you have made a choice and there are consequences for such choices.
1. You know someone doesn't want to pvp when you realize after a few attacks they aren't fighting back. Time to kill is 30-60 secs. More than enough time to assess if someone wants to do battle.
2. A castle siege isn't toxic. It's pvp with consent. The castle owner knows there is a chance for them to be attacked. They enjoy this gameplay so they engage in it.
3. The caravan system is designed with the expectation that pvp will occur around it. It's corruption free pvp which obviously means its an intended pvp zone.
4. If you and I both want to gather the same resource node then it's first come first serve. Simple as that.
5. If you kill the mobs b4 your tank gets there.... how is that toxic? U probably have some good dps. Good job.
6. In league, being invaded early is always a potential. If you want to win then you should use a more fitting jungler or have a plan in mind to deal with potential early invades.
Having a town for pkers will hurt the game more than help it. You should have to look over your shoulder every second if you choose to pk a green. You made the choice, no one forced you to. The system is built around risk vs reward. There is no risk if you have a hideout you can't immediately run to after murdering someone to bank your goods.
However, the location would soon be known, and the place would be swarming with bounty hunters and green players hoping to get an item drop.
And that's really the thing here, it just won't work with the current system to have a PK friendly town, and I don't really want the system to change. At least not before it's been tested.
There was an arena looking cosmetic in one of the cosmetic pack for freehold buildings so yeah you will most likely get an arena option to build
Like the troll in three billy goat`s gruff! Under a bridge off the map, in a small cave off the map.
Not a lot of places but perhaps a few places scattered across the map, just to provide a bit of spice!
I like the idea too.
But let's reduce the number of these to very low. Choose a number. 13 ?
Then to be usable by only one player and only if it is known by that player. That means, if another player would notice him entering, a message would be shown to him that the secret was discovered and it would become visible to bounty hunters too. Such a discovered entrance would vanish once the player would leave.
Alternatively, attempting to enter while other players look toward that place would destroy the entrance without any message. Nobody would know that there was something there except the player who initially discovered and used it.
the underworld.
On the map, for all we know it may show the player, the BH arrives and realizes you're underground now.
Oooo that'd be really cool if Bounty Hunters couldn't track corrupted in the underrealm, assuming the underrealm is small enough to be searched by a bunch of bounty hunters manually. But honestly I think this wouldn't be very necessary due to corrupted being able to flee to the ocean.
Corrupted entering the ocean would not make them safe or less corrupted. They wouldn't start fighting without penalties just because they are there, isn't it?
One PK should be a fairly low Corruption Score - and relatively quick and easy to get rid of.
Mistakes happen.
I don't think 1-shotting another player can be accidental, though.
To make the underworld a place where corrupted players can escape would be a bigger game design change than making the oceans auto-flag.
If corrupted players get a safe place then the game must ensure that the corruption gets more difficult to remove if the benefits of safety is used and that they cannot leave that safe place for long time to clean the corruption. This would ensure that the game remains fair for non-combatants even if bounty hunters fail to do their job.
Also the OP request to have tents, shacks or even a full town for PK-ers would also need game mechanics to prevent the PK-ers kill each other.
But such a change would create a faction. The corrupted faction.
I know the wiki say there will be no factions and while the concept is interesting, the reason to have no factions is because each node with it's citizens is actually a faction.
If the game is balanced well, fighting against other nodes will always be possible and no pk faction is needed.
If a general peace between all 85 nodes is stable for long time, then the balancing failed.
There is so much focus that a PK-er might kill a non-combatant and how we protect them but actually if the node or alliance is at war, they have to fight.
Corrupted player is marked on the Bounty Hunter map.
The corrupted player flees to the underground. We know the under realm are node large sizes. Multiple entrance.
The Bounty Hunter see's a dot on the mini-map and proceeds to go to it. HOWEVER the map doesn't tell him if the Corrupted player is above or underground. So when BH arrives - he quickly realize, that SoB is in the under realm. He can still proceed to chase him and go down there to kill him. BUT BY NO MEANS PROTECTING or giving a safe space to PKer.
All the under realm does, perhaps is buy them some time, as the mini-map can not determine if the player is located above or below you.
Sound like a good idea.
Maybe information on these minimaps could depend on how much the BH advanced on this profession.
At the very least, expect it to be similar to the WoW mini-map, where there are markers for whether a target is above or below you or even in-doors.
hopefully, but it will probably be like l2, you cant really tell if they are above or below you based on mini map coordinates. however, there are some little tricks that can help you figure it out