One group that thinks they will go around "tapping people to see if they want to PvP" and that they will be PvPing to defend "their spot", they will be defending their gatherers from PvP and that they will be attacking other gatherers to take their stuff. They believe anyone that doesn't want this is a "carebear" who wants to turn the game into a PvE only game.
We already know all that stuff will happen. The question is how often, how prevalent will it be.
PvX means that you don't penalize Non-Combatants for not choosing to PvP.
Non-Combatants suffer normal death penalties when they die.
How is it a PvX game if the non-combatant can treat a combatant as just another mob though? You can completely ignore the pvp part of the game by treating other players as just mobs with a bit better AI.
You had a caravan and it got attacked? Just monsters crossing the road decided to attack it. Your node got sieged? Literally the same as the dragon event, but with more "mobs".
Hell, it's even in-lore, because if a player goes red, he gains corruption, which is a thing that affects mobs too, so in a way any combatant players are just mobs that are sometimes cursed with corruption. Turns out that Ashes has been a PvE game all aloooong lol.
Steven expects that dev goal will be met because PKing was rare in Lineage II and Corruption has harsher penalties than Lineage II Karma.
PKing was somewhat rare there only because people fought back in, like, 80+% of the cases. That game was a pure PvX game because your main activity in the game was just grinding mobs. And the better the farming spot you were grinding - the more the chances of someone coming there to claim that spot for themselves. Which would lead to PvP, because you didn't want to give up the juicy farm or you didn't want to waste time to return to that spot again. So you have PvP in your PvE.
But there were some assholes that liked to run around as pure murderhobos and just PK newbies, and due to the low time-to-kill values it was very easy to make an alt that would just run around red w/o much trouble. And this is why Steven added the stat dampening, so that even if that same asshole tried to go on the same killing spree in Ashes - he physically wouldn't be able to after just a few kills.
But with that being the case, you could still PK a dude deep in a dungeon and remove that corruption quite quickly. The kill would be against an equally-leveled player so the amount of karma you'd get was quite small (unless you had a PK count in the dozens). And I personally hope that AoC's has a similar balance when it comes to the amount of corruption you get for an equal-lvl kill.
And imo having visible player lvls would help that very much. And it would help both sides. A PvPer wouldn't attack a newbie, because he doesn't want to go red, so the lower-leveled gatherers would be able to just gather in piece (unless there's other same-lvl PvPers around), while fights for high lvl farm spots or high lvl super rare resources would still allow for some limited PKing to occur w/o insanely high penalties.
But obviously, this kind of balancing would have to be tested a lot in alpha-betas.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It's a PvX game because because it supports PvE-centric players and PvP-cenric players and PvP-sometimes players. Rather than catering primarily to PvE-centric players or catering primarily to PvP-centric players.
Yep, PvE-centric people can treat other players like a mob. And PvP-centric people can treat other players just like a mob.
Caravan attack is not Non-Combatant. Caravan attack everyone is auto-flagged as Combatant.
Steven says Corruption is designed to be harsher than Karma.
Steven says Corruption is designed to be harsher than Karma.
Yes, exactly for the reasons I've described. We've yet to learn how much corruption we'll gain for killing a player of the same lvl. Or, we know that it's a "moderate" amount, but that obviously tells us nothing because we don't know what the upper and lower limits are.
And imo, a PvX game is one where PvP stands between you and your PvE goals. And depending on how harsh the corruption balance will be, AoC's place on the PvX spectrum could differ wildly - from almost completely PvE (on the off chance that some of the suggestions from this thread get implemented) to almost completely PvP (if the penalties are only super harsh for 5+ kills or newbie murders).
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
That can be your opinion. It's not Steven's. "Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove."
---Steven
"There's going to be a large possiblity of PvP oriented players having PvP things to do and the same is true on the PvE side. If you're a PvE player who doesn't want to participate in PvP all the time, or really wants to avoid PvP to a large degree, there's going to be many things for you to do in the game that reflect only a PvE experience. We're not forcing players to do one or the other. There's a healthy balance in the game that's going to reflect those two systems. And they both have to have a lot of tender, loving care when developing."
---Steven
We know where Steven wants the balance to be due to the design of Corruption.
We know, for instance, that Corrupted start with 4x the death penalties of a Non-Combatant.
We know where Steven wants the balance to be due to the design of Corruption.
We know, for instance, that Corrupted start with 4x the death penalties of a Non-Combatant.
We know about the resulting penalty, but not the period of time this penalty would be applied to us. There's been quotes of "it might take several deaths to clear it", but those could mean amounts of corruption after genocidal runs or newbie killings.
Here's another quote from Steven:
"If you go on a murder spree and you have 10 pks under your belt then you might start feeling a significant dampening to your skill effects against other players. I don't want to give necessarily a number or curve for players to extrapolate prior to us having the ability to actually test these ideas and where those numbers are going to lie; but I would say what is the intent behind that dampening: The intent isn't to limit the fun of the player, the intent is to provide a give-and-take or a risk-versus-reward; and the risk of continuing down the road of accruing corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects but also your ability to perform in that activity. – Steven Sharif"
Here he says that "you might" start feeling the harsher effects after 10 damn kills. And says that corruption penalties are not to "limit the fun of the player", which would imply 2 things: they obviously don't know precise value because 0 testing has been done and the corruption itself is as viable of an activity for players as caravans or sieges are.
Which leads me to believe that Steven's underlying design is way closer to L2's one than to what you think it'll be. But obviously, I might be completely wrong or after all the testing the casual crowd will just push for way harder punishments. Only the time will tell.
Here he says that "you might" start feeling the harsher effects after 10 damn kills.
That isn't quite what he said.
The 10 PK's he's referring to here are an accumulating count of PK's. This PK count increases the amount of corruption you gain per kill. Working off corruption does not reduce that PK count.
So, if I gain corruption from killing 1 person a day for 2 weeks, I will have a PK of 14. I may have worked the corruption off after each kill, but I still have that PK count. That PK count increases the amount of corruption I gain, and with 14 PK's I may well be getting double or more corruption than I would if I had 0 PK's.
There will be a way to reduce your PK count, but it will be more effort than removing corruption - and may well be limited in how often you can do it.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
Clearing Corruption does not clear xp debt. So, it's 4x the xp debt of normal death penalty - which means 4x the time to clear compared to if that Corrrupted person had died as a Non-Combatant.
And that is from the first PK. 10PKs is the hypothetical marker of when a Corrupted feels even harsher penalties.
Corruption can't be closer to L2's Karma than I think. It's not about what I think. I'm discussing Steven's design goals.
Steven states that Corruption, by design, is significantly harsher than Karma due to the additional penalities he's added that Karma did not have.
There's no way to evaluate whether Corruption will truly be harsher than Karma until we test the implementation of Corruption.
Yeah, I know how the system works. I've played with this system for 12 years in Lineage 2.
And that quote is ripped out of bigger context. It's the 16th reference on the "Corruption" page of the wiki. And if you watch the interview, Steven says "if you kill one dude, you get a bit of corruption so the stat dampening is weak. If you go kill 10 dudes - you gonna feel it".
So yet again, Steven's base penalties are based on L2's system, until they won't be because people complain during testing.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
No. Corruption's base penalties have additional penalties compared to L2's Karma.
Those base penalties increase significantly at the 10PK mark.
Also, that is an exceedingly poor paraphrase of the actual quote:
GrumpyGuy: How critical will the reduction in stats be when one becomes Corrupted?
Steven: Critical Reduction Stats? So...the answer is, it scales with the amount of Corruption the player has. So, if you accrue very little Corruption, you murder one person, the impact is going to be relatively negligent. If you go on a murder spree and you hae 10PKs under your belt, then you might start feeling a significant dampening under your skill effects against other players... The risk of continuing down the road of accruing Corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects, but also our ability to perform in that activity. Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focus or a PvE focus. It is a comprehensive PvX game.
Clearing Corruption does not clear xp debt. So, it's 4x the xp debt of normal death penalty - which means 4x the time to clear compared to if that Corrrupted person had died as a Non-Combatant.
And that is from the first PK. 10PKs is the hypothetical marker of when a Corrupted feels even harsher penalties.
Btw, interesting point about that. I wonder if we get more XP from the same mobs if we have a ton of XP debt on us. in theory this should help casual players who might be dying often get back up quicker, but it could also help the super corrupted dudes to clear their debt quicker too, because they'd be punching above their lvl by a lot (that is if their gear allows them to kill those same high lvl mobs).
No. Corruption's base penalties have additional penalties compared to L2's Karma.
Those base penalties increase significantly at the 10PK mark.
Again, I'm talking about the time-to-cleanse values. In L2 it was maybe a few mobs of your lvl if you PKed an equally-lvld dude. The amount of karma gained with each new kill would grow, so if you had a PK count of 10, you would not only risk dropping gear (same as Ashes), but you'd also need to grind mobs for a few minutes.
And if you killed some dude who's 20 lvls below you, you'd need several deaths or 20-30 mins of grinding high lvl mobs (which would be almost impossible due to how farming spots in L2 were located).
And those time values will be tested in Ashes, because from the quote I posted it seems like right now those values are close to L2's, that is "you get small amount of corruption for a single kill w/o a PK count and you get way more corruption if you kill your 10th dude or a low lvl".
And right now this would mean that PKing a dude deep in a high lvl dungeon won't really impact your character all that much. You might even PK him a few more times and still manage to clear the corruption on the mobs in the dungeon (unless there's someone around to immediately kill you obviously). But the more you kill, the harder it'll be (as it should be).
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
RE: time-to-cleanse values. The values that matter are Corrupted start with 4x the xp debt they would have if they died as a Non-Combatant. Which means it will take them 4 times longer to cleanse that xp debt than it would if they had died as a Non-Combatant.
Because Ashes is a PvX game.
If Ashes were a PvP-focused game, everyone would be a Combatant by default, normal death penalties would be based on Combatant death penalties and Non-Combatants would have larger death penalties than normal for choosing to flag as a Non-Combatant.
Also, that is an exceedingly poor paraphrase of the actual quote
But did I not relay the same meaning? One kill = very little corruption, while a lot of kills = way more.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
You did not convey the same meaning. Which is why it's an exceedingly poor paraphrase.
It's not "very little Corruption". It's Critical Stat Reduction (one of the Corruption penalties) will be relatively negligent with 1PK compared to the Critical Stat Reduction with a significantly higher Corruption Score.
1PK provides 4x the xp debt one would have if they died as a Non-Combatant (Non-Combatants only suffer normal death penalties). 4x normal death penalties ≠ very little.
Which, again, is how we know Ashes is a PvX game, rather than a PvP-focused game.
RE: time-to-cleanse values. The values that matter are Corrupted start with 4x the xp debt they would have if they died as a Non-Combatant. Which means it will take them 4 times longer to cleanse that xp debt than it would if they had died as a Non-Combatant.
Because Ashes is a PvX game.
No, those values only matter if you die as a corrupted player. Death is not the only way to remove corruption.
Which is why I'm hammering down the idea of time-to-cleanse values. If I have very little corruption on me after killing a dude deep in a farming dungeon - I'll just kill some mobs and clear the corruption. No other penalties apply. The death penalties don't matter if you don't die.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
Death is the quickest way to clear Corruption.
How long it takes to clear Corruption really has little to do with how we know Ashes is a PvX game, rather than a PvP-focused game. Other than we know that you have to kill a bunch of mobs and/or complete a bunch of quests. And we know it's intended to be slow. "Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score."
Death is the quickest way to clear Corruption.
How long it takes to clear Corruption really has little to do with how we know Ashes is a PvX game, rather than a PvP-focused game. Other than we know that you have to kill a bunch of mobs and/or complete a bunch of quests.
And that's where our approaches towards this system differ the most. You look at it as a "death is the main and only way to remove corruption so only the increased death penalties matter", while I look at it from the angle of "grinding mobs is the main way to remove corruption so the time required to do that matters the most".
And I get a feeling that Steven is closer to me interpretation of the system, because he added the Bounty Hunter system to the game. If death was the only way to remove corruption, all reds would just die to the nearest mob and that'd be that. There'd be no point in having a BH system that relies on there being several red players in the world for a prolonged period of time.
But if you look at the system with mob grinding in mind, then it makes complete sense. You go red for whatever reason, you now need to remove your corruption by killing mobs (because you wanna avoid the harsh death penalties) so you spend way more time, running around as red, as you would if your only choice was death. And now the BHs have the time to try and catch you.
I'd personally prefer an additional "afterglow" period of time for BHs (mb 20-30 min), where even after the red player removed their corruption (through whatever means), the BHs would still have a bounty on his head and would be able to kill that player for free (and the ex-red player wouldn't flag against BHs, so their death penalty would be the default one instead of 1/2). But the bounty would go away after the first BH claims it.
This way the red players would still get some punishment for the murder, the corruption amount for singular kills could still be somewhat low and grindoffable, the BHs would be highly motivated to participate in the system and would have way more targets to hit. Hell, make the resources involved in the killing of the first victim traceable and if the BH loots them from the PKer, they should get even more in-system rewards for returning those resources to the victim. This would promote more community-based relations and would make casuals feel much better about the situation. An absolute win across the player spectrum board.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
It's not "our" approaches.
You really shouldn't try to paraphrase - you're not at all good at it.
I did not say anything about "the main way to remove Corruption." You are the one broaching that concept.
The quickest way to remove Corruption is via death: "Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score."
Also "Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score."
None of that is particularly relevant to this discussion, though. "Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focus or a PvE focus. It is a comprehensive PvX game."
---Steven
"PvX means that you don't penalize Non-Combatants for not choosing to PvP.
Non-Combatants suffer normal death penalties when they die."
---Dygz
"There's going to be a large possiblity of PvP oriented players having PvP things to do and the same is true on the PvE side. If you're a PvE player who doesn't want to participate in PvP all the time, or really wants to avoid PvP to a large degree, there's going to bemany things for you to do in the game that reflect only a PvvE experience. We're not forcing players to do one or the other. There's a healthy balance in thhe game that's going to reflect those two systems. And they oth have to have a lot of tender, loving care when developing."
---Steven
Love this quote can i ask where its from? sorry for random tangent lol
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I wonder if we don't give enough credit to "casuals". If Dark Souls/Elden Ring has shown us anything, there are millions of people who don't mind dying over, and over, and over - as long as it's a good game. I guess you could say "Elden Ring players aren't Casuals", but my wife LOVES Elden Ring and I can assure you she is very much a Casual. She was frustrated with it at first, but as she played she learned that the reward she got from the experience of a truly great game was worth the struggle that I would argue is at the core of what makes the game so rewarding. I think AoC will be similar. If PvP is well implemented and the game itself has great content and gameplay, then the rewards players get by overcoming certain challenges, including fighting off other players, will itself make the game that much more rewarding to play. I truly think we look down too much on casuals and underestimate their willingness to struggle if the game itself is rewarding.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited April 2022
I mean...people keep thinking it's about rewards for challeges.
Some RPG players don't like killing stuff, period.
Some RPG players are casual challenge players who prefer killing mobs rather than the hardcore challenge of defeating actual people, who are smarter and more ruthless than mobs.
Some RPG players are only intersted in PvP when they are in the mood for PvP.
And rewards are pretty much irrelevant.
If I'm not in the mood for PvP combat, you can't really give me any reward to put me in the mood.
I mean - if my tummy is stuffed, you might be able to pay me a million dollars to eat more and make myself puke - maybe....
But, it really has little to do with challenge or rewards and everything to do with playstyle and mood.
I don't consider PvP to be a struggle - it's just at the very bottom of my interest or desire the vast majority of the time.
Especially because I'm a pacifist and typically avoid combat of any kind, if possible. Even in TTRPGs.
That being said... I also like defending towns from attackers, so I enjoy Siege defense for short periods of time. It's not necessarily a binary issue.
I wonder if we don't give enough credit to "casuals". If Dark Souls/Elden Ring has shown us anything, there are millions of people who don't mind dying over, and over, and over - as long as it's a good game. I guess you could say "Elden Ring players aren't Casuals", but my wife LOVES Elden Ring and I can assure you she is very much a Casual. She was frustrated with it at first, but as she played she learned that the reward she got from the experience of a truly great game was worth the struggle that I would argue is at the core of what makes the game so rewarding. I think AoC will be similar. If PvP is well implemented and the game itself has great content and gameplay, then the rewards players get by overcoming certain challenges, including fighting off other players, will itself make the game that much more rewarding to play. I truly think we look down too much on casuals and underestimate their willingness to struggle if the game itself is rewarding.
I do enjoy a challenge, but i don't like losing a huge chunk of materials i farmed for hours. Also all these as punishment for dying:
Experience debt (negative experience).
Skill and stat dampening.
Lower health and mana.
Lower gear proficiency.
Reduction in drop rates from monsters.
Durability loss.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Well, it’s a portion of materials.
Devs have not said it’s a huge portion.
Non-Combatant death penalties are the same for PvP as they are for PvE.
So, you don’t lose more from being killed by a player than you would for being killed by a mob.
I do enjoy a challenge, but i don't like losing a huge chunk of materials i farmed for hours. Also all these as punishment for dying:
Experience debt (negative experience).
Skill and stat dampening.
Lower health and mana.
Lower gear proficiency.
Reduction in drop rates from monsters.
Durability loss.
The lower health/mana, lower gear prof, lower drop rates - those are all negatives for Corruption gained by ganking non pvp flagged players. Those are intended to deter people from griefing. Those are not normal death penalties. Choosing to attack another player who is not PvP flagged will have to be carefully calculated. You have to weigh what you are fighting over (farming spot, world boss, etc.) with the corruption you will gain and the negative impacts of it (reduced gear effectiveness, drop more gear on death, show on Bounty Hunters' map as a target, etc.)
All those penalties Nikr stated occur for combatants, non-combatants, and corrupted.
Non-combatant is labeled as normal death penalties, with all that Nikr stated applying
Combatant is the same penalties at 50% less than non-combatants
Corrupted is all of those penalties at 4x normal, plus PvP stat dampening, you’re visible on the map to bounty hunters, random respawn location and an increasing chance to drop whole gear pieces. It’s not listed there but I also feel like I remember Steven saying guards would attack you as well.
I think a lot of people need to spend more time reading the wiki. I'm not calling out anyone specifically, just a general observation from the couple years I've been here. This isn't your grandma's mmo.
It's very possible the majority of loot lost by non combatants will be from dying to mobs and then some random player snatching your dropped loot. Especially if we get the challenging pve that most everyone wants.
Imagine that, "griefer" mobs lol.
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HumblePuffinMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It's very possible the majority of loot lost by non combatants will be from dying to mobs and then some random player snatching your dropped loot. Especially if we get the challenging pve that most everyone wants.
Imagine that, "griefer" mobs lol.
Man, I’m aware of this but honestly rarely think about it. Add this to the reasons I wish I could manually flag and just stay as a combatant.
Comments
We already know all that stuff will happen. The question is how often, how prevalent will it be.
You had a caravan and it got attacked? Just monsters crossing the road decided to attack it. Your node got sieged? Literally the same as the dragon event, but with more "mobs".
Hell, it's even in-lore, because if a player goes red, he gains corruption, which is a thing that affects mobs too, so in a way any combatant players are just mobs that are sometimes cursed with corruption. Turns out that Ashes has been a PvE game all aloooong lol. PKing was somewhat rare there only because people fought back in, like, 80+% of the cases. That game was a pure PvX game because your main activity in the game was just grinding mobs. And the better the farming spot you were grinding - the more the chances of someone coming there to claim that spot for themselves. Which would lead to PvP, because you didn't want to give up the juicy farm or you didn't want to waste time to return to that spot again. So you have PvP in your PvE.
But there were some assholes that liked to run around as pure murderhobos and just PK newbies, and due to the low time-to-kill values it was very easy to make an alt that would just run around red w/o much trouble. And this is why Steven added the stat dampening, so that even if that same asshole tried to go on the same killing spree in Ashes - he physically wouldn't be able to after just a few kills.
But with that being the case, you could still PK a dude deep in a dungeon and remove that corruption quite quickly. The kill would be against an equally-leveled player so the amount of karma you'd get was quite small (unless you had a PK count in the dozens). And I personally hope that AoC's has a similar balance when it comes to the amount of corruption you get for an equal-lvl kill.
And imo having visible player lvls would help that very much. And it would help both sides. A PvPer wouldn't attack a newbie, because he doesn't want to go red, so the lower-leveled gatherers would be able to just gather in piece (unless there's other same-lvl PvPers around), while fights for high lvl farm spots or high lvl super rare resources would still allow for some limited PKing to occur w/o insanely high penalties.
But obviously, this kind of balancing would have to be tested a lot in alpha-betas.
Yep, PvE-centric people can treat other players like a mob. And PvP-centric people can treat other players just like a mob.
Caravan attack is not Non-Combatant. Caravan attack everyone is auto-flagged as Combatant.
Steven says Corruption is designed to be harsher than Karma.
And imo, a PvX game is one where PvP stands between you and your PvE goals. And depending on how harsh the corruption balance will be, AoC's place on the PvX spectrum could differ wildly - from almost completely PvE (on the off chance that some of the suggestions from this thread get implemented) to almost completely PvP (if the penalties are only super harsh for 5+ kills or newbie murders).
"Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove."
---Steven
"There's going to be a large possiblity of PvP oriented players having PvP things to do and the same is true on the PvE side. If you're a PvE player who doesn't want to participate in PvP all the time, or really wants to avoid PvP to a large degree, there's going to be many things for you to do in the game that reflect only a PvE experience. We're not forcing players to do one or the other. There's a healthy balance in the game that's going to reflect those two systems. And they both have to have a lot of tender, loving care when developing."
---Steven
We know where Steven wants the balance to be due to the design of Corruption.
We know, for instance, that Corrupted start with 4x the death penalties of a Non-Combatant.
Here's another quote from Steven:
"If you go on a murder spree and you have 10 pks under your belt then you might start feeling a significant dampening to your skill effects against other players. I don't want to give necessarily a number or curve for players to extrapolate prior to us having the ability to actually test these ideas and where those numbers are going to lie; but I would say what is the intent behind that dampening: The intent isn't to limit the fun of the player, the intent is to provide a give-and-take or a risk-versus-reward; and the risk of continuing down the road of accruing corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects but also your ability to perform in that activity. – Steven Sharif"
Here he says that "you might" start feeling the harsher effects after 10 damn kills. And says that corruption penalties are not to "limit the fun of the player", which would imply 2 things: they obviously don't know precise value because 0 testing has been done and the corruption itself is as viable of an activity for players as caravans or sieges are.
Which leads me to believe that Steven's underlying design is way closer to L2's one than to what you think it'll be. But obviously, I might be completely wrong or after all the testing the casual crowd will just push for way harder punishments. Only the time will tell.
That isn't quite what he said.
The 10 PK's he's referring to here are an accumulating count of PK's. This PK count increases the amount of corruption you gain per kill. Working off corruption does not reduce that PK count.
So, if I gain corruption from killing 1 person a day for 2 weeks, I will have a PK of 14. I may have worked the corruption off after each kill, but I still have that PK count. That PK count increases the amount of corruption I gain, and with 14 PK's I may well be getting double or more corruption than I would if I had 0 PK's.
There will be a way to reduce your PK count, but it will be more effort than removing corruption - and may well be limited in how often you can do it.
And that is from the first PK. 10PKs is the hypothetical marker of when a Corrupted feels even harsher penalties.
Corruption can't be closer to L2's Karma than I think. It's not about what I think. I'm discussing Steven's design goals.
Steven states that Corruption, by design, is significantly harsher than Karma due to the additional penalities he's added that Karma did not have.
There's no way to evaluate whether Corruption will truly be harsher than Karma until we test the implementation of Corruption.
And that quote is ripped out of bigger context. It's the 16th reference on the "Corruption" page of the wiki. And if you watch the interview, Steven says "if you kill one dude, you get a bit of corruption so the stat dampening is weak. If you go kill 10 dudes - you gonna feel it".
So yet again, Steven's base penalties are based on L2's system, until they won't be because people complain during testing.
Those base penalties increase significantly at the 10PK mark.
Also, that is an exceedingly poor paraphrase of the actual quote:
GrumpyGuy: How critical will the reduction in stats be when one becomes Corrupted?
Steven: Critical Reduction Stats? So...the answer is, it scales with the amount of Corruption the player has. So, if you accrue very little Corruption, you murder one person, the impact is going to be relatively negligent. If you go on a murder spree and you hae 10PKs under your belt, then you might start feeling a significant dampening under your skill effects against other players... The risk of continuing down the road of accruing Corruption is not only the loss of your gear and amplified death effects, but also our ability to perform in that activity. Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focus or a PvE focus. It is a comprehensive PvX game.
And if you killed some dude who's 20 lvls below you, you'd need several deaths or 20-30 mins of grinding high lvl mobs (which would be almost impossible due to how farming spots in L2 were located).
And those time values will be tested in Ashes, because from the quote I posted it seems like right now those values are close to L2's, that is "you get small amount of corruption for a single kill w/o a PK count and you get way more corruption if you kill your 10th dude or a low lvl".
And right now this would mean that PKing a dude deep in a high lvl dungeon won't really impact your character all that much. You might even PK him a few more times and still manage to clear the corruption on the mobs in the dungeon (unless there's someone around to immediately kill you obviously). But the more you kill, the harder it'll be (as it should be).
Because Ashes is a PvX game.
If Ashes were a PvP-focused game, everyone would be a Combatant by default, normal death penalties would be based on Combatant death penalties and Non-Combatants would have larger death penalties than normal for choosing to flag as a Non-Combatant.
It's not "very little Corruption". It's Critical Stat Reduction (one of the Corruption penalties) will be relatively negligent with 1PK compared to the Critical Stat Reduction with a significantly higher Corruption Score.
1PK provides 4x the xp debt one would have if they died as a Non-Combatant (Non-Combatants only suffer normal death penalties). 4x normal death penalties ≠ very little.
Which, again, is how we know Ashes is a PvX game, rather than a PvP-focused game.
Which is why I'm hammering down the idea of time-to-cleanse values. If I have very little corruption on me after killing a dude deep in a farming dungeon - I'll just kill some mobs and clear the corruption. No other penalties apply. The death penalties don't matter if you don't die.
How long it takes to clear Corruption really has little to do with how we know Ashes is a PvX game, rather than a PvP-focused game. Other than we know that you have to kill a bunch of mobs and/or complete a bunch of quests. And we know it's intended to be slow.
"Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score."
And I get a feeling that Steven is closer to me interpretation of the system, because he added the Bounty Hunter system to the game. If death was the only way to remove corruption, all reds would just die to the nearest mob and that'd be that. There'd be no point in having a BH system that relies on there being several red players in the world for a prolonged period of time.
But if you look at the system with mob grinding in mind, then it makes complete sense. You go red for whatever reason, you now need to remove your corruption by killing mobs (because you wanna avoid the harsh death penalties) so you spend way more time, running around as red, as you would if your only choice was death. And now the BHs have the time to try and catch you.
I'd personally prefer an additional "afterglow" period of time for BHs (mb 20-30 min), where even after the red player removed their corruption (through whatever means), the BHs would still have a bounty on his head and would be able to kill that player for free (and the ex-red player wouldn't flag against BHs, so their death penalty would be the default one instead of 1/2). But the bounty would go away after the first BH claims it.
This way the red players would still get some punishment for the murder, the corruption amount for singular kills could still be somewhat low and grindoffable, the BHs would be highly motivated to participate in the system and would have way more targets to hit. Hell, make the resources involved in the killing of the first victim traceable and if the BH loots them from the PKer, they should get even more in-system rewards for returning those resources to the victim. This would promote more community-based relations and would make casuals feel much better about the situation. An absolute win across the player spectrum board.
You really shouldn't try to paraphrase - you're not at all good at it.
I did not say anything about "the main way to remove Corruption." You are the one broaching that concept.
The quickest way to remove Corruption is via death: "Dying removes a significant portion of a player's corruption score."
Also "Gaining experience will also slowly reduce a player's corruption score."
None of that is particularly relevant to this discussion, though.
"Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focus or a PvE focus. It is a comprehensive PvX game."
---Steven
"PvX means that you don't penalize Non-Combatants for not choosing to PvP.
Non-Combatants suffer normal death penalties when they die."
---Dygz
Love this quote can i ask where its from? sorry for random tangent lol
Mark 33:25
Some RPG players don't like killing stuff, period.
Some RPG players are casual challenge players who prefer killing mobs rather than the hardcore challenge of defeating actual people, who are smarter and more ruthless than mobs.
Some RPG players are only intersted in PvP when they are in the mood for PvP.
And rewards are pretty much irrelevant.
If I'm not in the mood for PvP combat, you can't really give me any reward to put me in the mood.
I mean - if my tummy is stuffed, you might be able to pay me a million dollars to eat more and make myself puke - maybe....
But, it really has little to do with challenge or rewards and everything to do with playstyle and mood.
I don't consider PvP to be a struggle - it's just at the very bottom of my interest or desire the vast majority of the time.
Especially because I'm a pacifist and typically avoid combat of any kind, if possible. Even in TTRPGs.
That being said... I also like defending towns from attackers, so I enjoy Siege defense for short periods of time. It's not necessarily a binary issue.
I do enjoy a challenge, but i don't like losing a huge chunk of materials i farmed for hours. Also all these as punishment for dying:
Experience debt (negative experience).
Skill and stat dampening.
Lower health and mana.
Lower gear proficiency.
Reduction in drop rates from monsters.
Durability loss.
Devs have not said it’s a huge portion.
Non-Combatant death penalties are the same for PvP as they are for PvE.
So, you don’t lose more from being killed by a player than you would for being killed by a mob.
The lower health/mana, lower gear prof, lower drop rates - those are all negatives for Corruption gained by ganking non pvp flagged players. Those are intended to deter people from griefing. Those are not normal death penalties. Choosing to attack another player who is not PvP flagged will have to be carefully calculated. You have to weigh what you are fighting over (farming spot, world boss, etc.) with the corruption you will gain and the negative impacts of it (reduced gear effectiveness, drop more gear on death, show on Bounty Hunters' map as a target, etc.)
In case you don’t go and read the wiki:
All those penalties Nikr stated occur for combatants, non-combatants, and corrupted.
Non-combatant is labeled as normal death penalties, with all that Nikr stated applying
Combatant is the same penalties at 50% less than non-combatants
Corrupted is all of those penalties at 4x normal, plus PvP stat dampening, you’re visible on the map to bounty hunters, random respawn location and an increasing chance to drop whole gear pieces. It’s not listed there but I also feel like I remember Steven saying guards would attack you as well.
It's very possible the majority of loot lost by non combatants will be from dying to mobs and then some random player snatching your dropped loot. Especially if we get the challenging pve that most everyone wants.
Imagine that, "griefer" mobs lol.
Man, I’m aware of this but honestly rarely think about it. Add this to the reasons I wish I could manually flag and just stay as a combatant.