Well thank you for discussion and I hope to see you next time.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
In L2, some of the high level farmers also had higher level, highly geared pk teams, the would come in pairs. Primary to take the final kills and side kick to pickup gear if they under estimated their foe.
Things was they were not always the strongest in the room! Fun times when the pk`er gets pk`ed
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Some players that were KoS, would make difficult names and make alts that appeared to have the same name and same gear, but for the unsuspecting, were one shot kills..
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
What ever AoC systems become, the weakness and strengths will be exploited..
@Dreik unfortunately anything that eases the Corrupted's burden won't fly with the community, but maybe the devs will read and consider it. 99% of the forum dwellers can't grasp that a player may PK for reasons other than to grief. The punishment for PKing could be a permaban, and the response from them would still be "don't PK".
Personally, I think this would only be needed if getting rid of corruption without dying is really difficult (e.g. corruption timer too long, too many players on bounty hunting duty, etc.), but at the same time this could be abused by griefers. Perhaps it should only apply for single PK corruption, and if you double down on PKing, you can no longer make use of it.
@Dreik unfortunately anything that eases the Corrupted's burden won't fly with the community, but maybe the devs will read and consider it. 99% of the forum dwellers can't grasp that a player may PK for reasons other than to grief. The punishment for PKing could be a permaban, and the response from them would still be "don't PK".
Personally, I think this would only be needed if getting rid of corruption without dying is really difficult (e.g. corruption timer too long, too many players on bounty hunting duty, etc.), but at the same time this could be abused by griefers. Perhaps it should only apply for single PK corruption, and if you double down on PKing, you can no longer make use of it.
The game wants to allow PK-ing. Just not excessively.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
You gain corruption for committing an act of murder. There should be penalties, not rewards, for murdering someone. You should not be able to buy your way out of corruption.
You gain corruption for committing an act of murder. There should be penalties, not rewards, for murdering someone. You should not be able to buy your way out of corruption.
Would corruption not cover bribes and bent officers of the law?
You gain corruption for committing an act of murder. There should be penalties, not rewards, for murdering someone. You should not be able to buy your way out of corruption.
Would corruption not cover bribes and bent officers of the law?
** imagines a red throwing money at a bounty hunter to go away **
hahaha
The game wants to allow PK-ing. Just not excessively.
Yes... the game is around open world savage PvP as base of the PvP part of PvX...
I don't understand why people consider corruption = no PK...
Go in purple, and fight other purple,
Hit green and if they don't defend themselves, stop, else, kill them.
The simple fact that purple is SAFER in regard of death penalty is already a good reason to get purple... (So... can be killed without the killer becomes corrupt)
People complaining about corruption are for me the gankers in stranglethorn, who wait you pull an ennemy to kill you, and then try to spawnkill until bored of it, you leave. Or when people attacked ashenvale/barrens with their lvl 60...
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CptBrownBeardMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
This conversation has popped up periodically ever since Intrepid introduced the corruption mechanics. I think most of the "community" (read: newcomers to the newer forums) has either forgotten or is unaware of the original intention. When corruption was first introduced it was designed to be as it technically still is: a way to encourage risk vs reward conflict between individuals/organizations while still policing overly-zealous PKers who just want to cause chaos for chaos' sake. Hence why it takes effect only after killing a player that hasn't fought back. As the base of the system, I don't expect Intrepid to change this.
I also find it meaningless to support the argument that changes to corruption will aid the PvP scene, considering there's little PvP challenge in smacking someone who doesn't fight back. Your main instances of it coming into play will revolve around resource-gatherers, where you might can get some valuable resources. Guild.vs.guild/node.vs.node has the war declaration system which will make it so everyone involved is already flagged combatant with their main enemy. No corruption gain. Practically every other instance of PvP will be combatant vs combatant, so how exactly does one think corruption has room to be anything other than a punishment? It baffles me, truly.
There wasn't even a Bounty Hunter system in the original design. Some few posters kept complaining that the corruption system was barebones with no other ways for the corrupted to have fun. So the BH system was a way to spice things up a little, but even then did not add more benefits to the corrupted. Just keeps them neutral against the BH's.
tl;dr The corruption mechanic is not intended for 100% "pirate" or "murderer" playthroughs. Intrepid clearly has a design goal in mind, and I doubt that will change much. Not because they aren't open to it, though. That's just how they want it to be.
/rant over, I suppose. Didn't mean for it to progress this far.
The game wants to allow PK-ing. Just not excessively.
Yes... the game is around open world savage PvP as base of the PvP part of PvX...
I don't understand why people consider corruption = no PK...
Go in purple, and fight other purple,
Hit green and if they don't defend themselves, stop, else, kill them.
The simple fact that purple is SAFER in regard of death penalty is already a good reason to get purple...
People complaining about corruption are for me the gankers in stranglethorn, who wait you pull an ennemy to kill you, and then try to spawnkill until bored of it, you leave. Or when people attacked ashenvale/barrens with their lvl 60...
I think we need to include EXACTLY this info with the link to the ashes wiki for new players.
PURPLE IS THE COLOUR OF GLORY.
red is the colour of dishonour on your cow.
Whats more imporant to add to wiki is that the corruption system doesn't involve any other aspect of game. Its a purely system to stop needless lower level harassment.
Looking at all these arguments my conclusion is simple. There is no need for bounty hunters since there will be no bounties.
There is no real incentive to kill players or be "evil". Since there is no evil there is no good. Well its ruins my experience.
There is no real need for open PVP then. Just lock it behind wars etc...
Also since corrupted state isn't really prologned or lived by state. You can very easily abuse killing people.
Kill -> get resources -> give items to a friends -> let others kill you so you don't lose them -> stop corruption
Rinse and repeat abuse the system...
On the other hand if there are quests/factions that require you to be corrupted it is incentive to NOT GET KILLED.
I'm sorry but why make so many posts when you clearly don't understand how the corruption system works? first of all a corrupted player cannot trade with another player, they also will get attacked by NPC's at nodes and cannot interact with NPC's in the node.
Corruption is a PUNISHMENT why don't you understand this? Why would they create content for behaviour they want to discourage.There will be no open WPvP? well there will be or you will lose double your resources when you die. The Death penalty is halved if you fight back. When you fight back both party's are then combatants and no one gets corruption.
Please use the wiki before making posts.
"Now that I think of it if corrupted player is in a very strong guild he can walk scot free since you don't want a guild to gang on you for killing their player. So whole corrupted system is just flawed.."
The only thing that is flawed is your logic and sense. You don't need an incentive to be "evil" people are going to grief no matter what and this system adds risks to mitigate that so every casual player doesn't quit the game within 1 month.
Corruption is a PUNISHMENT why don't you understand this? Why would they create content for behaviour they want to discourage.
For the very same reason that PKing is allowed in the first place? Or the fact that you can't flag against an already corrupted player, so if you lose, you receive full death penalty rather than half? Corrupted can also be hunted and freely fight bounty hunters without any stat dampening. That's content. It exists. It's not encouraged to grief PK, but PKing is allowed and can be beneficial at times.
There will be no open WPvP? well there will be or you will lose double your resources when you die. The Death penalty is halved if you fight back. When you fight back both party's are then combatants and no one gets corruption.
You don't even know if somebody's a PvPer until you hit them to see if they fight back. This already reduces OWPvP. People may also not fight back because they think the attacker will cease the attack so as not to get corrupted. Hitting somebody back in order to flag up and save half resources, when the enemy already has a good head start for having attacked first and taken a good chunk of your HP, does not seem like a fair OWPvP to me. Now imagine if people were allowed to permaflag (literally no reason not to allow that), PvPers could focus on those instead of bothering PvEers because they DON'T KNOW if they're PvPers or not.
Hitting somebody back in order to flag up and save half resources, when the enemy already has a good head start for having attacked first and taken a good chunk of your HP, does not seem like a fair OWPvP to me.
Time to kill is supposed to be 30 secs to a minute. If one hit is "a good chunk" - that ain't really a 30sec ttk then, now is it.
But it's more about the victim's awareness than just someone hitting them first. If you're farming smth valuable enough for someone to risk going corrupt for - you should be aware of your surroundings and prepared for anyone to attack you. And even better to just shoot first if you see someone approaching your location.
And if you choose to not fight back till you die, it's gonna be on the attacker to decide whether your potential loot or the location itself is worth the corruption. That's the "risk vs reward" equation that Intrepid's going for with their design.
Now imagine if people were allowed to permaflag (literally no reason not to allow that), PvPers could focus on those instead of bothering PvEers because they DON'T KNOW if they're PvPers or not.
The reason to not allow that is the risk vs reward thing I mentioned. Why would a pvper flag himself when doing pve stuff. And if pvpers are not flagged for pvp during those times, than it's literally no different from the current system.
And if you're a pvper who believes in his strength and is always ready to square up - you just do what I described in the first response. You just shoot first to let the approaching player know that you're ready to fight him. I've done so and had other people do so against me in L2 for years.
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LethalityMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I have been looking into Player Death and Player Flagging.
I have came to conclusion beeing corrupted is a huge burden at the moment. Not only does your death affects you way more than regular player (which is fine) but it bars you from many activities. Therefore there should be a way to even temporarily hide your corrupted state, for a right price of course.
For example high cost consumable that would hide your corrupted state for up to 2 hours or until you exit node(city) you first walk into.
Another way could be some Epic or Legendary items that could hide your status with active ability.
On the other hand it would be a nice if you could see through disguise somehow. As a priest you could cast "Detect Evil" or something.
Working as intended... the intent is to bar you from large parts of the game.
Sure. I minsunderstood intentions of corruption since nothing says ITS ONLY PUNISHMENT. I have thought its part of the bigger picture than just a system to stop harassing lower level players.
Looking at all these arguments my conclusion is simple. There is no need for bounty hunters since there will be no bounties.
There is no real incentive to kill players or be "evil". Since there is no evil there is no good. Well its ruins my experience.
There is no real need for open PVP then. Just lock it behind wars etc...
Also since corrupted state isn't really prologned or lived by state. You can very easily abuse killing people.
Kill -> get resources -> give items to a friends -> let others kill you so you don't lose them -> stop corruption
Rinse and repeat abuse the system...
On the other hand if there are quests/factions that require you to be corrupted it is incentive to NOT GET KILLED.
Actually, the most ideal flag to be is combatant. You lose half of what you would if you die green. They purposely make it worse to die as a non combatant to promote pvp, but you are not forced to engage in it. People do not want to go red and they cannot see your health bar, most encounters will be people attacking to poke, waiting for a response. If they fight back easy game both are purple. If they dont, they leave the area and you now have the farming spot or node or whatever it is you are attacking them for.
Sure. I minsunderstood intentions of corruption since nothing says ITS ONLY PUNISHMENT. I have thought its part of the bigger picture than just a system to stop harassing lower level players.
If you're farming smth valuable enough for someone to risk going corrupt for - you should be aware of your surroundings and prepared for anyone to attack you. And even better to just shoot first if you see someone approaching your location.
Everyone should just shoot anyone in their vicinity, "just in case"?
And if you choose to not fight back till you die, it's gonna be on the attacker to decide whether your potential loot or the location itself is worth the corruption. That's the "risk vs reward" equation that Intrepid's going for with their design.
A player seeking random OWPvP and not getting it because the green doesn't fight back and the purple doesn't want corruption is neither risk nor reward, it's a time waste for both parties.
Now imagine if people were allowed to permaflag (literally no reason not to allow that), PvPers could focus on those instead of bothering PvEers because they DON'T KNOW if they're PvPers or not.
The reason to not allow that is the risk vs reward thing I mentioned. Why would a pvper flag himself when doing pve stuff.
Are you for real here? You seem to think that PvP is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting fight itself, which is wrong. PvP is its own reward. Players who want PvE exclusively at a given time may not flag, while players who don't mind PvP during their PvE activities would.
And if you're a pvper who believes in his strength and is always ready to square up - you just do what I described in the first response. You just shoot first to let the approaching player know that you're ready to fight him. I've done so and had other people do so against me in L2 for years.
Or, you could be allowed to permaflag so other PvPers can focus you instead of wasting time looking for consensual OWPvP where there's none. Again, there's literally no reason to not allow permaflagging for whoever wishes to do that.
An alternative would be a different kind of indicator that you're a PvPer, without actually flagging. So somebody wanting to PvP would know there's a good chance you'll fight back.
Attacking first doesn't translate to "1 hit". A ranged player could probably dish out a lot more against a melee one.
And melee classes usually have more hp/defense to make up for that matchup, so those few hits would still be in the range of "equal strength". Also, I'd expect melee players to spec into at least some kind of gap-closing ability.
Everyone should just shoot anyone in their vicinity, "just in case"?
If you're a PvPer who's doing pve and see a potential attack approaching you and you want to show him that you're ready to fight for your spot - yes. If that "potential attacker" didn't mean to bother you, he definitely won't bother you now and just move along. And if he did want to fight, he'll have himself a proper fight now.
A player seeking random OWPvP and not getting it because the green doesn't fight back and the purple doesn't want corruption is neither risk nor reward, it's a time waste for both parties.
There's gonna be multiple ways of achieving "random owpvp" and attacking random greens for no good reason is not one of them. But if you have a reason to do so - you're free to.
Are you for real here? You seem to think that PvP is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting fight itself, which is wrong. PvP is its own reward. Players who want PvE exclusively at a given time may not flag, while players who don't mind PvP during their PvE activities would.
And that pvp can be experienced in even more ways than the "random owpvp" I was talking about above. Attacking a green gatherer who's just minding his own business has nothing to do with "rewarding pvp".
Or, you could be allowed to permaflag so other PvPers can focus you instead of wasting time looking for consensual OWPvP where there's none. Again, there's literally no reason to not allow permaflagging for whoever wishes to do that.
An alternative would be a different kind of indicator that you're a PvPer, without actually flagging. So somebody wanting to PvP would know there's a good chance you'll fight back.
If you're so hellbent on advertising your willingness to have random fights, just have a title above your head that says "I WANT TO PVP". Well, at least I hope we can have custom titles like that cause that was one of my favorite mechanics in L2.
All in all, the game is not about random attacks on green players. If you want to pvp, there's a shitton of ways to do that. If you wanna harass people minding their own business - you're free to do that, but there'll be consequences for that. And if you want to use the flagging system to fight over content - you have risks and a variety of decisions to make that are based on those risks. And the risks are present for both sides.
Attacker won't know if the defender is stronger or not and whether he fights back or not. The defender doesn't know the former either and has to decide about the latter based on the situation at hand. The attacker's risk is ultimately higher because the game deters you from killing greens. But if there's mobs around, there's a chance that the mob will do the finishing blow, which would put more risk onto the defender.
None of that risk would be present if the attacker always knows who's gonna fight back or not. And any potential pvp defender would most likely not indicate that he's a pvper when he's doing pve, because if he wanted to pvp in that moment - he'd just use multitudes of other ways to do that instead of pveing. And this whole setup would just lead us back to the current setup of the flagging system. The attacker would just have to risk it, if he had the reason to, or just go pvp the people who're participating in pvp activities.
None of that risk would be present if the attacker always knows who's gonna fight back or not. And any potential pvp defender would most likely not indicate that he's a pvper when he's doing pve, because if he wanted to pvp in that moment - he'd just use multitudes of other ways to do that instead of pveing. And this whole setup would just lead us back to the current setup of the flagging system. The attacker would just have to risk it, if he had the reason to, or just go pvp the people who're participating in pvp activities.
The attacker won't always know who's gonna fight back or not. Only those who permaflag (or are purple due to engaging in PvP).
Just like the majority of players are PvEers, there's tons of PvXers that wouldn't permaflag while doing PvE, just as you yourself said. We could take New World for example, not that many people run around flagged up, even though there are PvE benefits for doing so.
So, mostly, everything remains the same, only that the option to permaflag ("come at me!") is enabled to the few who choose it, for a more spiced up gameplay. Permaflagging doesn't benefit the user in any way other than inviting players for a fight, so it's a bigger risk for the permaflagged as they can't cause corruption to whomever kills them. In fact, they're screwed if a group of players decide to jump them. They can also be freely attacked by corrupted. The one advantage I can think of, is being flagged against a corrupted player, which greens cannot do, so in case of death their penalty is halved, though I doubt anyone would consider this a big advantage considering the disadvantages.
So, mostly, everything remains the same, only that the option to permaflag ("come at me!") is enabled to the few who choose it, for a more spiced up gameplay. Permaflagging doesn't benefit the user in any way other than inviting players for a fight, so it's a bigger risk for the permaflagged as they can't cause corruption to whomever kills them.
And this entire mechanic is present within the guild/node wars features. If you like pvping, you'll find a group of like-minded people (cause you'll have to). That group will be doing things that'll garner them some rivals and enemies. And then whatever you do will be under the threat of an attack from the enemy.
Except, in case of wars, there's more meaning behind the fighting and people are signed up for it for as long as the war goes. And if your guild makes a reputation for themselves of being good pvpers, anyone else who's interested in pvping (but is not an enemy member) would attack you to try their luck against a good opponent.
I've played under these kinds of social and game rules in L2 and it was the funnest experience ever. Each fight was meaningful and each rivalry had a huge history behind itself. And out of those rivalries you'd build years-long friendships.
Having a flag above your head that says "kick me" doesn't add anything like that. And how would that flag function? Could you change it on the fly or would you have the NW mechanic? What if you change your mind deep in a dungeon, in the context of the NW's method? Now your attackers would be confused as to why'd you put that flag up if you didn't mean to fight back. And the mechanic would lose its point.
And if you can change it on the fly, then how is it any different from you just fighting back when you want to or the attacker attacking whoever he wants? It's not like all of the people with this flag on would just fight each other every time they meet. You'd have some "flagged" people not fighting each other and then some "unflagged" people fighting each other because the situation made them to.
Well, this is in the context of a non-forced flag of course. Because if you did have it as an opt-in feature just like in NW, I'm sure the majority would never even touch it. And those few who do, might change their minds after getting attacked by superior forces several times over. NW had factions so you'd be sure that at least some part of the playerbase would never attack you, but Ashes won't have that. And the factions that it will have would just use the already-present features to participate in pvp.
I'm talking about an actual purple permaflag, not just some text or icon indicator that "yeah I like to PvP". Though in the case of that simple indicator, then sure, you could fool people and not actually fight back, but it's better than not having one. In case of forced flag (you can't unflag anywhere, only in town or safezone or whatever), having the option to permaflag wouldn't negatively impact the game in any way. Your examples of guild/node wars/L2 is irrelevant.
Now imagine if people were allowed to permaflag (literally no reason not to allow that), PvPers could focus on those instead of bothering PvEers because they DON'T KNOW if they're PvPers or not.
The reason to not allow that is the risk vs reward thing I mentioned. Why would a pvper flag himself when doing pve stuff.
Are you for real here? You seem to think that PvP is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting fight itself, which is wrong. PvP is its own reward. Players who want PvE exclusively at a given time may not flag, while players who don't mind PvP during their PvE activities would.
I just realized that normally
PvP = Gathering : you click on something/somebody and you put the stuff in your inventory.
Then we can also say:
"You seem to think that Gathering is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting Gathering itself, which is wrong. Gathering is its own reward."
Imagine a PvP-er observing 3 hours long a Gatherer collecting stuff and killing him after each collected item and finding his inventory empty. And both being satisfied how they spent their time.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
Comments
Things was they were not always the strongest in the room! Fun times when the pk`er gets pk`ed
Personally, I think this would only be needed if getting rid of corruption without dying is really difficult (e.g. corruption timer too long, too many players on bounty hunting duty, etc.), but at the same time this could be abused by griefers. Perhaps it should only apply for single PK corruption, and if you double down on PKing, you can no longer make use of it.
The game wants to allow PK-ing. Just not excessively.
Would corruption not cover bribes and bent officers of the law?
** imagines a red throwing money at a bounty hunter to go away **
hahaha
Yes... the game is around open world savage PvP as base of the PvP part of PvX...
I don't understand why people consider corruption = no PK...
Go in purple, and fight other purple,
Hit green and if they don't defend themselves, stop, else, kill them.
The simple fact that purple is SAFER in regard of death penalty is already a good reason to get purple... (So... can be killed without the killer becomes corrupt)
People complaining about corruption are for me the gankers in stranglethorn, who wait you pull an ennemy to kill you, and then try to spawnkill until bored of it, you leave. Or when people attacked ashenvale/barrens with their lvl 60...
I also find it meaningless to support the argument that changes to corruption will aid the PvP scene, considering there's little PvP challenge in smacking someone who doesn't fight back. Your main instances of it coming into play will revolve around resource-gatherers, where you might can get some valuable resources. Guild.vs.guild/node.vs.node has the war declaration system which will make it so everyone involved is already flagged combatant with their main enemy. No corruption gain. Practically every other instance of PvP will be combatant vs combatant, so how exactly does one think corruption has room to be anything other than a punishment? It baffles me, truly.
There wasn't even a Bounty Hunter system in the original design. Some few posters kept complaining that the corruption system was barebones with no other ways for the corrupted to have fun. So the BH system was a way to spice things up a little, but even then did not add more benefits to the corrupted. Just keeps them neutral against the BH's.
tl;dr The corruption mechanic is not intended for 100% "pirate" or "murderer" playthroughs. Intrepid clearly has a design goal in mind, and I doubt that will change much. Not because they aren't open to it, though. That's just how they want it to be.
/rant over, I suppose. Didn't mean for it to progress this far.
I think we need to include EXACTLY this info with the link to the ashes wiki for new players.
PURPLE IS THE COLOUR OF GLORY.
red is the colour of dishonour on your cow.
I'm sorry but why make so many posts when you clearly don't understand how the corruption system works? first of all a corrupted player cannot trade with another player, they also will get attacked by NPC's at nodes and cannot interact with NPC's in the node.
Corruption is a PUNISHMENT why don't you understand this? Why would they create content for behaviour they want to discourage.There will be no open WPvP? well there will be or you will lose double your resources when you die. The Death penalty is halved if you fight back. When you fight back both party's are then combatants and no one gets corruption.
Please use the wiki before making posts.
"Now that I think of it if corrupted player is in a very strong guild he can walk scot free since you don't want a guild to gang on you for killing their player. So whole corrupted system is just flawed.."
The only thing that is flawed is your logic and sense. You don't need an incentive to be "evil" people are going to grief no matter what and this system adds risks to mitigate that so every casual player doesn't quit the game within 1 month.
You don't even know if somebody's a PvPer until you hit them to see if they fight back. This already reduces OWPvP. People may also not fight back because they think the attacker will cease the attack so as not to get corrupted. Hitting somebody back in order to flag up and save half resources, when the enemy already has a good head start for having attacked first and taken a good chunk of your HP, does not seem like a fair OWPvP to me. Now imagine if people were allowed to permaflag (literally no reason not to allow that), PvPers could focus on those instead of bothering PvEers because they DON'T KNOW if they're PvPers or not.
But it's more about the victim's awareness than just someone hitting them first. If you're farming smth valuable enough for someone to risk going corrupt for - you should be aware of your surroundings and prepared for anyone to attack you. And even better to just shoot first if you see someone approaching your location.
And if you choose to not fight back till you die, it's gonna be on the attacker to decide whether your potential loot or the location itself is worth the corruption. That's the "risk vs reward" equation that Intrepid's going for with their design. The reason to not allow that is the risk vs reward thing I mentioned. Why would a pvper flag himself when doing pve stuff. And if pvpers are not flagged for pvp during those times, than it's literally no different from the current system.
And if you're a pvper who believes in his strength and is always ready to square up - you just do what I described in the first response. You just shoot first to let the approaching player know that you're ready to fight him. I've done so and had other people do so against me in L2 for years.
Working as intended... the intent is to bar you from large parts of the game.
Actually, the most ideal flag to be is combatant. You lose half of what you would if you die green. They purposely make it worse to die as a non combatant to promote pvp, but you are not forced to engage in it. People do not want to go red and they cannot see your health bar, most encounters will be people attacking to poke, waiting for a response. If they fight back easy game both are purple. If they dont, they leave the area and you now have the farming spot or node or whatever it is you are attacking them for.
Here you go: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corruption
PvEers may not have this awareness, so having received damage first may further decrease their desire to fight back, therefore consensual OWPvP.
Everyone should just shoot anyone in their vicinity, "just in case"?
A player seeking random OWPvP and not getting it because the green doesn't fight back and the purple doesn't want corruption is neither risk nor reward, it's a time waste for both parties.
Are you for real here? You seem to think that PvP is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting fight itself, which is wrong. PvP is its own reward. Players who want PvE exclusively at a given time may not flag, while players who don't mind PvP during their PvE activities would.
Or, you could be allowed to permaflag so other PvPers can focus you instead of wasting time looking for consensual OWPvP where there's none. Again, there's literally no reason to not allow permaflagging for whoever wishes to do that.
An alternative would be a different kind of indicator that you're a PvPer, without actually flagging. So somebody wanting to PvP would know there's a good chance you'll fight back.
All in all, the game is not about random attacks on green players. If you want to pvp, there's a shitton of ways to do that. If you wanna harass people minding their own business - you're free to do that, but there'll be consequences for that. And if you want to use the flagging system to fight over content - you have risks and a variety of decisions to make that are based on those risks. And the risks are present for both sides.
Attacker won't know if the defender is stronger or not and whether he fights back or not. The defender doesn't know the former either and has to decide about the latter based on the situation at hand. The attacker's risk is ultimately higher because the game deters you from killing greens. But if there's mobs around, there's a chance that the mob will do the finishing blow, which would put more risk onto the defender.
None of that risk would be present if the attacker always knows who's gonna fight back or not. And any potential pvp defender would most likely not indicate that he's a pvper when he's doing pve, because if he wanted to pvp in that moment - he'd just use multitudes of other ways to do that instead of pveing. And this whole setup would just lead us back to the current setup of the flagging system. The attacker would just have to risk it, if he had the reason to, or just go pvp the people who're participating in pvp activities.
Just like the majority of players are PvEers, there's tons of PvXers that wouldn't permaflag while doing PvE, just as you yourself said. We could take New World for example, not that many people run around flagged up, even though there are PvE benefits for doing so.
So, mostly, everything remains the same, only that the option to permaflag ("come at me!") is enabled to the few who choose it, for a more spiced up gameplay. Permaflagging doesn't benefit the user in any way other than inviting players for a fight, so it's a bigger risk for the permaflagged as they can't cause corruption to whomever kills them. In fact, they're screwed if a group of players decide to jump them. They can also be freely attacked by corrupted. The one advantage I can think of, is being flagged against a corrupted player, which greens cannot do, so in case of death their penalty is halved, though I doubt anyone would consider this a big advantage considering the disadvantages.
Except, in case of wars, there's more meaning behind the fighting and people are signed up for it for as long as the war goes. And if your guild makes a reputation for themselves of being good pvpers, anyone else who's interested in pvping (but is not an enemy member) would attack you to try their luck against a good opponent.
I've played under these kinds of social and game rules in L2 and it was the funnest experience ever. Each fight was meaningful and each rivalry had a huge history behind itself. And out of those rivalries you'd build years-long friendships.
Having a flag above your head that says "kick me" doesn't add anything like that. And how would that flag function? Could you change it on the fly or would you have the NW mechanic? What if you change your mind deep in a dungeon, in the context of the NW's method? Now your attackers would be confused as to why'd you put that flag up if you didn't mean to fight back. And the mechanic would lose its point.
And if you can change it on the fly, then how is it any different from you just fighting back when you want to or the attacker attacking whoever he wants? It's not like all of the people with this flag on would just fight each other every time they meet. You'd have some "flagged" people not fighting each other and then some "unflagged" people fighting each other because the situation made them to.
Well, this is in the context of a non-forced flag of course. Because if you did have it as an opt-in feature just like in NW, I'm sure the majority would never even touch it. And those few who do, might change their minds after getting attacked by superior forces several times over. NW had factions so you'd be sure that at least some part of the playerbase would never attack you, but Ashes won't have that. And the factions that it will have would just use the already-present features to participate in pvp.
PvP = Gathering : you click on something/somebody and you put the stuff in your inventory.
Then we can also say:
"You seem to think that Gathering is only meaningful when there's something to be gained other than the potentially exciting Gathering itself, which is wrong. Gathering is its own reward."
Imagine a PvP-er observing 3 hours long a Gatherer collecting stuff and killing him after each collected item and finding his inventory empty. And both being satisfied how they spent their time.