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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.
PVP system thoughts
Azraya
Member
I'm curious if you guys can find any flaws in this system. Would this be a viable PVP system?
Set it to where players cannot attack/heal/buff another player that is more than 10 levels above or below you.
Add a hidden system that starts a timer when player 1 kills player 2.
During this active timer, player 1 CANNOT start a fight against player 2.
Player 2 CAN start a fight with player 1 during this timer, if they choose. (Some people want revenge!)
This will kill his timer and allow player 1 to defend himself.
The timer could completely keep you from starting combat against a player you recently killed or it could just corrupt you, making you lootable and marking your location on the map for bounty hunters.
Set it to where players cannot attack/heal/buff another player that is more than 10 levels above or below you.
Add a hidden system that starts a timer when player 1 kills player 2.
During this active timer, player 1 CANNOT start a fight against player 2.
Player 2 CAN start a fight with player 1 during this timer, if they choose. (Some people want revenge!)
This will kill his timer and allow player 1 to defend himself.
The timer could completely keep you from starting combat against a player you recently killed or it could just corrupt you, making you lootable and marking your location on the map for bounty hunters.
0
Comments
My preference is that anyone can attack anyone else, but there are consequences to that action, not barriers.
I was trying to think of a PVP system that discourages griefing and bullying lower level players.
I think what AoC is going to do will work just fine, tho. As long as corrupted players can be looted in some form.
I think we're all super curious to test the corruption system - and REALLY push it so it's calibrated correctly. It's going to be the linchpin of open-world player combat, and (maybe overstating it a bit) probably the success of the game (at least until it's balanced and corrected).
You're not wrong to be thinking about other guardrails, I think we just need to dive in an feel how corruption balances owpvp.
Now, the chances are, people will do that either way, but your system doesn't stop lowbie alts from griefing other lowbies so it's not like you're solving this problem.
And as Dygz said, Corrupted players are pretty much loot piñatas, so that is not an issue either.
Keep in mind that the lower-level player is going to die whether he fights back or not. While he may drop a trivially larger number of gatherable materials since he is green rather than purple, eventually the corrupt killer will drop a lot more materials and likely some very valuable gear as well.
Back in L2, I occasionally saw the gear dropped from the corrupt player returned to the lower-level player as compensation for their death.
I think you misunderstand. I was just tossing around ideas and curious what others thought. Thats not my personal opinion on whats good or what I would like for myself.
If I had MY way, everyone would have the option to flag as pvp around level 10 but if you choose to flag PVP youre stuck that way. I'd also allow looting in some form every time you die in a pvp fight.
I would also give a currency reward for winning pvp fights that you could use to buy special gear that is lootable if you die in pvp.
I dont do PVE my dude. Only when forced to.
the corruption system has been in mmorpg for over 20 years now, so we all know how it works and feels. what its not obvious to most people, and maybe the OP is trying to guard against, is players (usually scrubs who cant compete at high level because they suck) will make an alt, level it (doesnt even have to be to max level), equip it with easy to acquire storebought gear and go to low level areas and just murder everyone. lower level players have 0 chance of fighting back or running away. corruption doesnt matter for these people since they are using an alt with trash gear, so going red isnt really a risk and they dont really care about losing corruption score since its a character that doesnt matter.
also, some players will have pk alts (or just equip their mains with trash gear) and go to a low level area, kill every1 and then level their alts (lets say they wanna level multiple character ot max) so low level players cant really fight back.
also, some high level players will gear up with low level gear and try to fight players and provoke them to attack them back, then once they are purple, they will switch to their high level gear and 1 shot the purple player and farm their mats or clear the leveling spot for a friend. no chance of the low level player fighting back.
yes u can always call friends etc etc to help but they arent always available, and u still gonna take the death penalty.
im against barriers like OP wants, however, if a high level char kills u when ur white or purple, u shouldnt incur death penalty.
the only benefits of no barriers ow pvp is bot hunting
hopefully we will only be allowed 1 char per server/account. this will mitigate the issue a bit, even though people with multiple accounts/pc will still have an advantage
I'm so confused as to why most people dont just put in a system that doesnt let someone level 60 start a fight with someone more than 10 levels below them. Just code it to where you can't start combat against someone not in your level range.
The other aspect of pvp is how is set up. For me it's cool to be able to kill others anywhere except on city maybee. It should get a limitation on lvl to not get abused. And last I would implement a sistem of mutual acceptance of pvp wich there is not penalization for anybody, and if agreed put a reward. Despite this I wold allow pvp anyways but if attacker dies loses something meaningful and if kills the victim would be marked for others as a target and if killed should lose something important and compensate the killer.
Because if I see a lowbie in another guild I'm at war with I will 100% kill them without mercy lmao. And if their guild wants to protect them, they can show up. There are consequences with war after all.
Am i going to kill a random lvl 10 lowbie talking crap, most likely not corruption isn't worth it for that. They pretty much lose nothing and i can lose a whole lot. Am i going to kill multiple lowbies, that sounds crazy.
It would solve the issue of someone low level dying to someone high level.
If the game literally won't let you fight because you're out of each others level range...
If people make alts and keep them low level so they can kill low levels? Thats a different beast. I don't see anything wrong with it.
well, lets say you are level 10 and you are in my farming spot, so i bring my friend who is level 30-60 (or maybe my dual boxed character), they hide behind a rock, i hit u, u hit me back, now ur purple, my friend comes out and 1 shots u. this is pretty common so it doesnt solve the issue.
if the level 30-60 cant hit u unless u hit him, then scenario 2 happens.
im level 30-60 cuz i play all day but my friend who only plays 2 hours a day is level 20. i wanna help him level, maybe im pulling mobs for him, maybe i even kill them since it would still be faster exp per hour. now you and 3 of ur friends come to our farming spot, you are all level 20-25, a 1v1 vs my friend would be fair, but its 4v1. now i cant defend my friend because i have the stupid level restriction for pvp.
best thing to do is not put any barriers, maybe only if ur red u cant attack whites who are 10 levels below, unless they hit u first, but thats it
Will a few lowbies on the server die at the hand of a high lvl player? Probably. Will a waaaaay bigger amount of them die at the hands of an alt of that high lvl player? Most definitely. The first one is not much of a problem and the second one is the intended gameplay (even if it does make those lowbies feel bad).
Now I could see account-wide corruption being a thing. Maybe if you go past some PK count value (which would be account-wide too), your future corruption begins to overflow onto your alts. This way you'd slash the number of PKs across the whole game. Any player that just PKs here and there can do the counter decreasing quest and be on their merry way, but anyone who wants to have a PKing alt would get fucked. Obviously this would have to be properly tested, but I think it might work.
@Azherae what does your designer brain think of this additional solution for hardcore PKers? Or do you consider PKing alts a non-issue and deem this suggestion to be pointless?
(I try not to judge these systems outside of what the Devs or Head Designer says they want).
I would absolutely accept it myself, if Corruption on one character could affect your alts, but this would be unfair to people who make Alts specifically to 'roleplay as Corrupted'.
The question is if Intrepid is condoning that type of behaviour as a Character Choice.
If it is NOT something they want people to be doing generally ('just having Character A suffer the consequences and not Character B') then there is a case for making bleedover. But from the sounds of things Steven has said many times, he still really believes that the social stigma and other things will be enough.
(note that I cannot bring myself to agree with this because of my own experiences, but they're just anecdotal).
Corruption could very well eliminate griefing. I was just saying I also think coding the system to simply not allow you to attack anyone outside of a pre-determined level range would also work. If the goal is to eliminate higher levels killing lower levels. There should never be a solution to people making an alt and keeping him low level for the sole purpose of PVP against other low levels.
I think corruption will curb the widespread mass-murder of Greens, but it won't eliminate griefing. There will still be reasonable (I'm going to get those mats!) and unreasonable (I don't like your face!) green-icides occuring.
That's ok.
Note, @NiKr this is mostly for you and as I always always say about it, it does not work in Ashes (which is why I have no problem sharing it because I don't think Intrepid would ever use it and honestly I also don't care if they do).
Imo the correct way to do this is.
1. Combatant attacks Non-Combatant and does damage, a Gauge fills up relative to those two players only. The value of that Gauge applies a percentage reduction to any further damage the Non-Combatant takes, increasing as you get lower, but does NOT affect DoT in exactly the same way.
2. If Non-Combatant changes to Combatant, the Gauge is zeroed and the two can battle 'fairly'. This allows a player to treat an initial hit as a challenge not a panic moment. If Non-Combatant agrees to flag up and fight for the position, they can heal first. If Combatant is not okay with them healing first, they keep attacking.
3. Every time Non-Combatant heals themselves or is healed, the Gauge is reduced. You can run, stall, or negotiate, but that's it.
4. Combatant can continue all the way to killing Non-Combatant at which point the Gauge converts into Corruption. If anything ELSE kills the Non-Combatant, same deal. The Gauge increase is pretty exponential as health gets lower, mind you, so it's a LOT of potential Corruption to kill even one person. Multiply even higher for level gap situations.
5. After a certain period of TIME, the Gauge also becomes Corruption whether you kill the target or not. So just 'raw griefing' will eventually corrupt you, but pinging people probably doesn't give much.
There's a bunch of other stuff related to this Gauge and the Corruption in the system I have that makes it harder to steal bosses from people without a fairISH fight.
None of this is what Ashes wants, but when you notice that I kinda 'dismiss' other options, it's because I've ran some scenarios and I only put effort into thinking about stuff that has an effect that I personally consider better than the above.
This does not fit Ashes. There's no reason for anyone to care about it, but similarly, I don't care about Ashes' system and plan to just ignore it, other than the obvious unavoidable consequence of 'dying while Red' that I will just consider part of the game.
Right, because that would fit with Ashes' goals better.
The game I am 'designing this for' is not intended to have the same type of player friction that Ashes does. It's meant to be more cooperative. So the idea would be that most people would think of fighting others as a natural part of the game, and the Gauge is there as a way of resetting the perspective.
"You hit me, but I'm not disadvantaged terribly, if you want a fair fight, gimme a minute."
"Nah I took you by surprise on purpose, if you just want to buff up before we even start, I'm not interested."
"Oh well then you're just gonna have to finish killing me but I'm not fighting you if I can't even buff first, if you want the spot, go Red for it."
(I'm still working out which Rogue skills give less Gauge on first attack in this system)
Without the damage reduction, it still works fine for Ashes MAYBE but I've never thought about it, and don't plan to. They will do their own thing.
Oh no, note again...
If you 'bring a guy down to 1%' and have been annoying them so long that your Dv Gauge is up to like 1200, it's just going to turn into Corruption points ANYWAY in about... 10 minutes. It's in your best interest if you are willing to go red to JUST use a rotation meant to kill your opponent as quickly as possible with minimal Gauge gain.
The better you are at PvP, the LESS risky it is supposed to be to do this, RELATIVE to 'the sort of person who is just trying to win by getting advantage but isn't as skilled'.
Make Assassins Great Again.
Ooooh. Interesting. So, does that gauge act kind of like a fuse in the sense that it's going to blow up that player with corruption whether they kill another player or not?