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Discussion: The connection of Open PvP and Economy & A Soft Flag System that makes sense.
novercalis
Member, Founder, Kickstarter
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/54242/a-soft-flag-hard-flag-camp-flag-system-that-works-alongside-the-corruption-and-open-world-pvp#latest
Fleshed out the concept - new post.
Fleshed out the concept - new post.
{UPK} United Player Killer - All your loot belongs to us.
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lmk if you want any particular thing focused on, or if you just prefer I don't respond at all given how I am.
But I suppose if we can't even start from that as a trust level, I might already have an answer.
perhaps you are a VERY FAST reader, but you can fault the skepticism on my part.
Still asking me what to focus on makes no sense either. What stands out to you that you disagree? Ganking lowbies should be allowed?
lowbies: what if im level 10 and i wanna pvp another lvl 10? now i cant thanks to your suggestion. we gonna basically spend 2 months without pvping until we are high level. great idea. now i cant fight for my spot, cant kill someone trying to mob drop me of any other form or annoyance/griefing. with the current corruption system, it sounds like a really really really bad idea to kill a low level. that problem is solved.
soft flag: now you are putting a target on peoples back
lvl 60 shouldnt be allowed to fight a lvl 10 w/o a soft flag.
Soft flag / Target on player back.
Good point, potential solution - you dont know if they are soft flagged or not unless you had intended to pvp to begin with. So, it shouldnt be a visual marker saying "HEY ATTACK ME" - only when you put your cursor over and attempt to attack, will you know if someone is soft flagged or not.
Artisan ability and Character level are not explicitly related.
So if I make a lowbie alt to do gathering and gear them up for Lv10 lowbie pvp, I just have to wait for all the others to level out of the range and I have a much larger protection.
Then I can be escorted to higher level areas to grab high level resources safely by guildmates.
It was a whole discussion at some point.
Let's use that scenario.
Low level gatherer - the second you carry a resource that soft flags you - that protection goes off.
I am aware there is a contradiction in my post about high lvl ganking low lvl - but to be fair, the post isnt fleshed out for all possible scenario either.
The moment, your low lvl gatherer is soft flag - he/she is open to pvp rulesets.
However AoC was gonna handle that aspect of gameplay remains the same.
All I am trying to do is add protection for the pointless killings, making unwanted griefing even harder.
Mainly someone doing basic gathering or basic leveling open world pve that isnt carrying soft flag items.
hence the soft flag idea. will that fix your concern?
So the idea is that priority wise, SoftFlag from Gatherables takes priority first, then 'level', then Adventurers?
Does my character lose their soft flag if I trade the item away? The other character then gets it, right?
Do rare drops/certificates from Adventurers leveling up, count?
This would bring me to my next, very personal complaint. I don't like games where mob drops aren't similar to Gatherables. Similarly, as noted by Depraved, now you've literally 'created a situation where someone can see if to attack another person or not'.
If they have to TEST this, then I think it's worse. They'll just 'follow you around and attempt an attack every time they see you finish gathering'.
I'm not saying this is meaningfully 'worse' than what they have in mind now, but I don't like their current design either. This adds something, it just adds a 'something' that seems to revolve around more people looking for ways to game a system, and oddly, doesn't solve the actual problem I think people have.
"I can't be attacked unless I get something worthwhile attacking me for."
Sure, this lets them run around the game safely, but what exactly is the point of that?
I guess it's hard to precisely make the point, but I agree with many people who think that this game shouldn't be targeted at a certain type of player. And 'the type of player that rejoices when they hear that they can't be attacked unless they get something that is actually valuable and then can be attacked' doesn't seem to me like the target audience. Either because they don't care about the main play loops, or because they won't be happy anyways because they will ask 'how does this help me if I like gathering valuable things'?
They are taking what you could have been gathering in a finite resource economy. If they can just run around grabbing everything then the economy will inflate and the value of literally everything falls like a rock. Attacking and killing them destroys some of the materials they had, and this is important because it adds value to what would otherwise be pretty mundane or worthless materials in a pve toggle setting.
If you cannot attack and contest other players for resources or farming spots you will get classic wow launch starter area levels of stupidity where people are stacked inside of the open world dungeons spamming target attack macros to kill mobs. Yet the only ones winning that sort of race are the ones with better gear, higher levels, more coordinated parties.
These can be contended with using pvp normally according to how they plan to address power scaling but in pve the advantage will be too severe making it worse for people that just want to pve, not better.
I agree with you, if u were. Do all resources matter tho?
I think common, basic shit like plain ol lumber (using New World) shouldnt really matter and get you attacked.
But the second you have a green lumber or whatever - now your open yourself for pvp, because important Resources should matter. ECONOMY matters.
White resources may not be important, but everything else should be contested. So give a little protection to the players who are just doing BASIC gathering, getting their basic gathering levels up and players who are trying to just level PvE style that isnt carrying anything of importance in peace.
Azhe - I assume you are against Open PvP in General? not sure what your stance is.
But to add - you are now soft flag, I can attack you, yes. but I can also demand and tell you, hey give me that resource or die. Assuming players still drop % of items. Instead of losing 100 out of 1000 logs, all you had to do is give me the Maple Saps.
If you pass the resource to another player - yes that player becomes soft flag. The point is - we are contesting for that resource. You become de-flagged.
When I mentioned levels - it was a general statement of just a PvE leveler vs high level. It is merely a statement in most mmo, high lvl players killing low level players just sucks, more so when there is no point to it. that gameplay should never exist to begin with.
But that should be all null and void if you are soft flag.
Regardless how AoC was/is going to handle a high lvl player killing a low level player via corruption still remains the same. But atleast have a reason - hence the soft flag is the reason. Because it indicated you had a resource. Now the decrepency of their levels falls into AoC Corruption system, which I am not touching.
I want to walk through a dungeon with my 6 friends to gather an item. They can kill the mobs and can win at PvP against most challengers.
I can't be attacked until I have the item. All I have to do is not die to mobs while they fight them.
This situation was 'bad enough' when the attacker almost certainly was going to go red for stopping me regardless of anything else happening. But now they KNOW that I can get deep in the dungeon or whatever. Instead of 'ok Rogue, kill the lowbie and we'll worry about things after that', we have 'ok everyone has to flag up to fight this group of invaders because we can only HOPE to find a way to kill the lowbie once they are all dead and we have to do it with mobs because they don't have any loot yet'.
We're already going to have enough trouble with SWArmies without having a level restriction on 'who you can stop from invading your territory'. I perceive a huge difference between 'I can kill those three level 20 dwarves who came into this level 38 area with their level 40 friends, but it's going to cost me', and 'I can only kill one of those Dwarves at a time depending on which one randomly gets good loot and I can't really do anything if they just log off here'.
That's the key annoying point btw, the alt that just logs off as soon as they get something good but can't be attacked at any other time.
Situations that lead to the potential counter being ONLY 'waste a potentially infinite amount of time' are not solutions, to me.
But at the same time, you know the scenerio - ask yourself what would be a good solution to your problem?
Perhaps - Specific Resources requires a level 100 gatherer to attain it, and to carry it, also requires lvl 100 gatherer. Thus u cant pass it to your friends and have to survive to carry it?
ttyl. I am hungry
Most PvP heavy players conclude that I am against open PvP.
Many PvE heavy players conclude that I am for open PvP/griefing. PvX seems to do that.
As for your response, I agree that this adds a layer that could protect a lot of low level players from negative situations. And I also believe that anything whatsoever that does that based on their LEVEL will be abused six ways from Sunday with a bit of thought from someone who has a low level alt.
So I don't HATE this idea. I just disagree with it. I don't have a suggestion to make it better, because you are working within a framework, trying to make that framework function better. I think the whole framework is flawed, AND that your changes make it very slightly worse relative to it's apparent reasoning/function.
tl;dr This works but they might as well just change the whole system at that point because the goals will have changed.
You are anti pvp because you are clueless, I can see that just because you think that such thing as griefing exists in pvp.
All you want is to protect your gold farming completely unbothered, ruinning the game's economy, going for a carebearing power grab by accumulating a fortune unchallenged.
The carebears are oppressive in any game, they should be hunted down and have all their goods stolen.
If carebears want to survive they have to learn PVP or bring PVPers to their guilds or work together with other players.
What is ruinning all games are communities who want to farm everything they can and as much as they can with no concerns about what is going on around them.
At the same time you see other players as a problem, they can also be your solution... it's players who can kill all your "scary pvp people", it is by creating partnerships and content with other players that you will survive.
In AoC the carebears will become the meta oppressors in the game because their bot aspirant pvp farmming operations will upgrade their node, that will make the surronding nodes as their slaves and you want all these people safe... they should be hunted down!
Vassal nodes are not allowed to declare war on the master node, the only way to stall the master node a little bit is by ganking all their gatherers.
See @novercalis to some people you are also anti-PvP.
As 'unhinged' as this poster seems sometimes, their point is just an exaggeration in some cases. I think Steven WANTS us to be able to do what they want to do, just at a cost. A potentially terrifying cost that I don't think should be mitigated too much.
But 'rules against doing it at all' lead to a system, and people game systems. Poke their psychology, not their capacity, I guess is my opinion.
Low level resources are still used in crafting higher tier items so making them free to pick is not good for the game. What if low level players want to contest other low level players for example? It's not always going to be high levels attempting to bully low levels.
You act like you didnt read how corruption works though. First of all you cant see how much health another player has at any point. So the risk of attacking a low level player or someone fighting a mob is that you accidentally kill the player making you corrupted.
Player death also sucks, a lot. And these penalties on death are halved if you try to defend yourself but if you are corrupted they are doubled.
The current corruption details make me think you would have to be a blooming dumbass to want to risk getting it. If people are just attacking each other and going red all over the place in the beginning of the game they will quickly find out how horrible the game will treat them for making that decision.
so just put the cursor on every1...the soft flag idea is pointless. and the corruption system exists so that the level 60 cant attack the level 10. i mean he could if he wanted to but he would be losing so much more.
tell me u didnt read the post and replies without telling me you didnt read the post and replies.
Sheesh
IF - because I do not know how the crafting system looks like in AoC - if they make low level trees logs meaningful then that changes things. But most often than not, in 99% of other MMO - common white resources, aren't that important / meaningful. They rarely impact the economy or be a source to be rich.
Using tree an example - there will be infinite supplies of basic lumber. Respawning fairly decently I assume. Now the Uncommon/Rare drops from those trees are much more important. that should be contested.
Sorry, I don't keep up with AoC 24/7 copium addicts like many other. I vaguely remember the details of their corruption system. I am not stating anywhere to remove or change corruption system. All of that stays.
Examples;
Currently Player A (level 60) wants to kill player B (level 10)
Player A has accepted the potential of corruption, he wants to kill player B, assuming player B has gatherable resources.
Player A attacks Player B
Player B decides fight or Run and Die and allow the full corruption to be inflicted on player A.
Player A is corrupted and learns player B had nothing of value.
***********
EXAMPLE 2A - My proposal
Currently Player A (level 60) wants to kill player B (level 10)
Player A has accepted the potential of corruption, he wants to kill player B, assuming player B has gatherable resources.
Player A attempts to attack Player B. Learns player B isnt soft flagged, thus have nothing of value.
Player B isnt grief for no reason and both players move on.
*************
EXAMPLE 2B
Currently Player A (level 60) wants to kill player B (level 10)
Player A has accepted the potential of corruption, he wants to kill player B, assuming player B has gatherable resources.
Player A attacks Player B successfully, knowing he has resources now.
Player B decides to fight or Run and Die and allow the full corruption to be inflicted on player A.
This does not changed on how it originally works now. Player A no matter what had INTENTION TO KILL player B for a reason - gatherables resources..
All we did was to prevent a NON REASON - someone who had no gatherable reason that allowed player B to be soft flagged.
My question is - in what purpose or Reason should a player kill another player that isnt soft flagged, meaning that isnt carrying in valuable resource/material that is imperative to the Economy/Node Mechanics. If they are simply just killing shit for XP and nothing more - there is no reason to impede and harass that player.
The second they loot something that is of value - they officially opted into PvP. Either give up the resource or die, if not, you have a very small protection.
The corruption system still remains the same, if they punish players for level decrpencies, than that stays the same. If they dont, that stays the same. NOT touching or changing any aspect of the corruption system.
Just defining the purpose of initiation PvP is all.
A Soft Flag allows pvp, regardless of level.
The Orc drops 3 items.
A Weapon (not flaggable)
A Armor (not flaggable)
and a Rabbit Foot Charm (Flaggable)
The player can decide, do I want to level in peace and take the weapon and armor and leave the rabbit foot on the corpse for someone else, or do I risk soft flagging myself and potentially losing more stuff if I get attacked, just because i decided to have a rabbit foot charm with me to attempt to sell.
(HELL I AM OKAY WITH WEAPON/ARMOR being flaggable< if you only want XP, take the XP, leave the loot on the floor)
Agreeable, IF the Weapon and Armor have no real value.
But IF the Weapon and Armor have no real value I'm probably not playing anyway so it's not agreeable from that perspective.
If other people like that better though, it would no longer be my concern I guess?
What is considered value. Needs to be defined.
if it's a white weapon/armor that can sell to NPC for some meager gold.. cool - i personally dont think it should flag you.
However if smelting is a thing - than a white weapon/armor turning into ore becomes valueable - should be flaggable.
IDK how AoC items/crafting system looks like to comment.
----
Assuming no smelting weapons/armor.. then white weapons and armor isnt flaggable, but perhaps Green tier items should be flaggable 100% at this point. Even if it worth a few extra gold to an NPC - we need to define a hard line somewhere and create that RISK/REWARD sense in every aspect of the game.
Unfortunately for me, Ashes is still undefined enough to manage to 'become my idea of the perfect game', so I'm stuck here 'huffing the Copium' as they say, until Steven verifies some dealbreaker point.
This will continue for a while since the two parts I care about are the two parts lacking their Senior Staff.
I can tell you though that the sort of thing that can be sold to an NPC for 'enough gold that it's worth even having in your inventory' but DOESN'T flag you, I hope is not a part of Ashes overall.
you contradict yourself. you dont want people killing lowbies for no reason, yet you are putting a target on their back. i guess all you want is to know beforehand who to kill and who not to kill
i would normally not go out of my way to kill a lowbie, but if he has a rare item, guess what? its worth it for me to kill him. i could just bring a low level char from 2nd account or a friend and attack the lowbie with the target on his back..what is he gonna do? he cant fight back or ill 1 shot him with my main. if he accepts death and my lvl 10 goes corrupted, who cares? i loot you with my main and then cleanse the corruption on the lowbie, or simply kill it myself then trade the gear back
Orc beads - as an example - has no usage for nodes, growth, crafting or anything. Just a basic trash loot that sells for 10s. Cool - it allows the PvE players not to get flagged and slowly grow their wealth. I don't see anything wrong with BASIC TRASH drops.
Right, and we just disagree.
I don't generally play games with Trash Drops if I can help it. I'm not saying that's right, or good, or even 'specifically good or bad design'. I just have played games that basically 'don't have Trash drops', and I liked the outcome of that, and I don't like the other outcome as much.
So in my Perfect Ashes, there are none.
Sir, if you've read my posts - I even admitted that.
Personally it's not cool having a 60 kill a level 10 for no reason.
but key word is FOR NO REASON.
hence the soft flag, cause that GIVES A REASON.
to address your 2nd part:
Either your main or alt - doesnt change anything. That is AoC ruleset with it's corruption. I CANT CHANGE THAT. All I could have done is to protect that player who is about to get attacked. if he isnt soft flagged, then it didnt matter if you are in your main or 2nd account. The same is True if he was soft flagged.
That issue is already there before the soft flag idea. Thats another problem that needs another solution. This post aint it lol.
good luck finding that perfect game. Like in life and relationships - Consensus and Concessions are a must. Finding a perfect wife or S/O is impossible. Gotta accept some flaws to be happy, living together, etc.
Not trying to knock on you or diss, it's good to have high standards.
If people bring me problems to my idea, I can attempt to find solution.
If people bring me a principle to my idea - not much I can do
Yep. I just don't understand something, maybe you can explain it to me.
I don't know why games made the shift to having Trash Loot in the first place. I played a game for a long time that didn't have any, then another game that didn't have any, and then every game after that seemed to be made with it in, and I don't know why this was necessary.
They have to create the same number of items, if not more. They have to deal with the same levers in the economy, if not more. Players generally aren't QUITE so slow-witted that they can't figure out how to use trading/auction houses...
Why did games start adding Trash Loot? Why do you think it's important to begin with?