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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Trying to better understand PvP/My current opinion
zKrash
Member, Alpha Two
Hello everyone,
First of all, explaining my title: I'm relatively new to AoC, and while I've been eagerly reading the wiki, I'm still very much a noob, so the points I'm going to raise might be flawed due to my poor understanding of the game. Please let me know if my knowledge is lacking.
So the PvP is going to be everywhere, at all times. Right, I got that part. But upon dying, one would lose xp, health/mana, get less mobs drops, etc...., losses would be mitigated by a player's status (non-combatant, etc..)
So my questions would be as following:
Assuming "wild PvP"of being randomly attacked in the wild and not a castle siege or other type of planned PvP.
1) What would prevent a non-combatant player from simply... not fighting back? The way I understand it, to become a combatant, you have to engage in a fight, either by attacking first, healing/buffing, or fighting back. As a combatant, your losses are mitigated by half from a non-combatant upon losing. Okay, so Intrepid expect players to fight back in case of an attack to either lose nothing or at least less, right?
However, the player that attacked first has an advantage, and in a rock-paper-scissor type of PvP, it will probably mean they'll attack players they're strong against. With that in mind, winning is less than guaranteed and fighting back instantly makes you a combatant player, so a walking target for everyone to attack without penalties if you nonetheless end up winning.
However, Intrepid also prides itself in their "corrupted" mechanic that, based on the downsides, most people would want to avoid. So, once again, why would someone non-combatant want to fight back while they're at a disadvantage, assuming the other player would want to avoid the downsides of killing you as a non-combatant player at all costs (if not, then Intrepid's corrupted status idea might not exactly be an effective deterrent)? You could just literally sit there and wait until they leave, thus defeating the whole point of open world PvP.
2) Once again, assuming a wild PvP encounter.
Winner pros:
pride and satisfaction: positive
Loser cons:
frustration of losing : negative
xp, drop rate, mana/health, etc... : big negative
That would mean that the sum of most wild pvp encounters would be, with everything weighed in, negative. How can a game promote an healthy open world pvp where the gross sum of said pvp is negative?
For me, 1) and 2) seem like pretty heavy flaws. Then again, they might be wrong due to my lack of understanding of the game.
My potential solution: offer reward incentives for winning wild pvp rather than punishments for losing it (except if you are corrupted, in which case punishments should be enacted). And make bigger rewards if one won a fight when someone else initiated it, thus giving an incentive to fight back rather than just sitting there.
After all, it's been proven times and times again that a reward system to encourage a certain behavior works a lot better and is seen a lot more positively than a loss system for not doing it. But, once again, I'm just a noob that understands nothing.
Last minute thought: then again, I can see players making alt accounts between friends and use them to artificially win fights and keep piling up rewards, so there'd need to be a counter-measure for that... Tricky situation, but I still feel like losing things like xp upon dying would not promote a healthy PvP environment, besides the fact that more casual players would hate to see their already slow progression further hampered. Just my 2 cents.
First of all, explaining my title: I'm relatively new to AoC, and while I've been eagerly reading the wiki, I'm still very much a noob, so the points I'm going to raise might be flawed due to my poor understanding of the game. Please let me know if my knowledge is lacking.
So the PvP is going to be everywhere, at all times. Right, I got that part. But upon dying, one would lose xp, health/mana, get less mobs drops, etc...., losses would be mitigated by a player's status (non-combatant, etc..)
So my questions would be as following:
Assuming "wild PvP"of being randomly attacked in the wild and not a castle siege or other type of planned PvP.
1) What would prevent a non-combatant player from simply... not fighting back? The way I understand it, to become a combatant, you have to engage in a fight, either by attacking first, healing/buffing, or fighting back. As a combatant, your losses are mitigated by half from a non-combatant upon losing. Okay, so Intrepid expect players to fight back in case of an attack to either lose nothing or at least less, right?
However, the player that attacked first has an advantage, and in a rock-paper-scissor type of PvP, it will probably mean they'll attack players they're strong against. With that in mind, winning is less than guaranteed and fighting back instantly makes you a combatant player, so a walking target for everyone to attack without penalties if you nonetheless end up winning.
However, Intrepid also prides itself in their "corrupted" mechanic that, based on the downsides, most people would want to avoid. So, once again, why would someone non-combatant want to fight back while they're at a disadvantage, assuming the other player would want to avoid the downsides of killing you as a non-combatant player at all costs (if not, then Intrepid's corrupted status idea might not exactly be an effective deterrent)? You could just literally sit there and wait until they leave, thus defeating the whole point of open world PvP.
2) Once again, assuming a wild PvP encounter.
Winner pros:
pride and satisfaction: positive
Loser cons:
frustration of losing : negative
xp, drop rate, mana/health, etc... : big negative
That would mean that the sum of most wild pvp encounters would be, with everything weighed in, negative. How can a game promote an healthy open world pvp where the gross sum of said pvp is negative?
For me, 1) and 2) seem like pretty heavy flaws. Then again, they might be wrong due to my lack of understanding of the game.
My potential solution: offer reward incentives for winning wild pvp rather than punishments for losing it (except if you are corrupted, in which case punishments should be enacted). And make bigger rewards if one won a fight when someone else initiated it, thus giving an incentive to fight back rather than just sitting there.
After all, it's been proven times and times again that a reward system to encourage a certain behavior works a lot better and is seen a lot more positively than a loss system for not doing it. But, once again, I'm just a noob that understands nothing.
Last minute thought: then again, I can see players making alt accounts between friends and use them to artificially win fights and keep piling up rewards, so there'd need to be a counter-measure for that... Tricky situation, but I still feel like losing things like xp upon dying would not promote a healthy PvP environment, besides the fact that more casual players would hate to see their already slow progression further hampered. Just my 2 cents.
2
Comments
- If I didn't fight back, occasionally the attacker would stop so they would not go red.
- If I did fight back, I would win about half the time. However, everyone was relatively low level together which may have improved my chances.
- If I didn't fight back and I died, sometimes I could later hunt them down and kill them.
- The items I dropped were not particularly significant. Of course, I would periodically go to town and put my harvested items in my bank.
- It was pretty easy to find an area to harvest where I would not be attacked, out-of-the-way or hidden areas.
- The loss of progress due to dying was indeed slightly annoying.
I hope to see you in the game, have fun! TT
Do you think you'll be able to get back to that spot and kill the attacker while he's still red? Then you can try and "punish" him with corruption, but it's also not assured that he will even go through with the kill and now you'll be at low hp and there's a chance that a mob kills you and you lose the full amount of resources, while the attacker can still loot that off of you.
And the things tautau mentioned also all apply. World pvp will be quite rare, especially if you're at a lower lvl than surrounding attackers (cause that means a ton of corruption for them if you don't fight back).
the attacker doesnt necessarily has the advantage. remember you cant use cc skills on green players. so by him attacking him first, he goes purple and now u can cc then hit him or kill him, so he lost his first hit advantage.
you can also be aware of your surroundings. its pretty obvious when someone is going to attack you.
you can also go out of safe zones with friends and you will be attacked less that way.
if you both go purple and the other guy wins, he will probably be killed by someone else nearby.
The aim of mmos were for people to create a character, adventure, learn new skills, in order to have more interesting fights, develop personal strategies and group synergies. Loot items from mobs (or resources), craft and sell, thus becoming wealthy, and so getting better equipped with weapons and armor, as well as claim castles and other clan halls to dominate the world. Players would also do quests, with the lore of the game in the background, from which they could gain access to locations, further advance their characters strengths, or be rewarded with diagrams for strong gear, for which they had to gather the materials from the open world, with all it's dangers. Questing was minimal but serious. In mmos the story should always remain in the background, and the FREE AND UNRESTRICTED interaction between social players should be the experience. If people want to safely play for the story, they should play single player games.
Leveling and gearing up took time and group effort, especially in the high levels. It is a social game.
Individual players were free to interact with other players, be friends with them, by helping each other every time they chanced upon familiar names, or fight one another, for reasons which I will explain in a bit.
Since leveling and gearing up was hard and it was done in the open world, not some ez quest hub, not some crafting station location in a city, people would try to find effective ways to level up. One was to kill Raid Bosses. Another was to find spots with the best xp per hour, and the best chance of finding good stuff to sell or use to craft.
By this point is should be very easy to understand why some people might want to fight other players and claim those raid bosses, or the locations with the best xp/loot. The world didn't have instanced gameplay, like some kinda PS2 stage by stage, coop raiding or Versus Battleground PvP.
Again, leveling and gearing up wasn't as simple as a matter as "speak to that npc, do the quest by killing mobs or clearing dungeons by using a group finder" and here you are, you reached max lv and you have good gear.
People had reasons to group up, create guilds and play as part of an organization. People also had reasons to kill those who might be taking up space in an area.
You say why would somebody choose to fight back? Well if you don't, you are going to get PKed and you will have to spawn somewhere far away, and without teleports in AoC, it will take you a while to return to where you got owned. Meanwhile your killer and his friends are free to gather up all the mobs in the area that you got killed and get all the xp and loot.
You said, "whoever attacks first has the advantage". Recently it's been announce that CC abilities cannot be used on Green players (Players who have not hit another player). It is actually the purple players that are at a disadvantage (players who landed a hit on another player turn from green to purple). The can get stunned and killed. When a purple kills a purple, they return to green after a bit. That's not a PK. Again, note how an attacker could well be in a disadvantage if they chance upon a fearless player.
Now let's talk about the corruption system.
An mmo has character progression, questing, exploring, crafting/gathering, raiding and many other systems, some of which are unique from game to game. An mmo isn't a survival game, in which you just run around pick up stuff, craft lame looking gear and you just attack by using left-click. A survival game immerses you into just that. Surviving and looting. An mmo has much more than that, so you can't have people going around killing each other endlessly and looting things that took MONTHS to obtain.
You can enjoy a survival game within a week. There is only a few things you can do. An mmos progress takes a lot more than that, as well as it's achievements (and I am not talking about titles, skins, mounts and other CRAP like that, that people are conditioned to collect by playing boring, ez, instanced mmos).
Here is where the corruption system comes in place. It's not there to protect players from each other. It's there to protect all the features of the mmo, besides PvP. A player in Lineage 2 could PK on 3 people, and if he died as a red wouldn't lose any items. If he PKed 4 people and died, he would lose gear.
(there were quests that allowed you to erase your total PK count, and so people had restrains, there weren't going on killing sprees). Players in mmos should be free to interact with each other, either by killing them or by helping them.
People aren't going to go red, just to have their fun with you. They would risk to lose gear that may have taken them weeks or months to craft. But people will PK you if they are organized and have a specific goal in their mind. They will warn you to pack up and leave the area. It's up to you to clear the way for them, if they are strong and they are more than you.
People will also PK you if you annoy them. Or they can be your friends.
Assuming you could find them again. Is there a system to track down those who killed you?
Then what is the point for us to lose them, I wonder?
That's good to know, although not particularly relevant to the subject at hand, which assumes "what if we're being attacked anyway?".
Was definitely planning to join, until I found out about this whole "lose progression upon dying" that, quite frankly, I find to be nonsensical.
Sorry tautau, I know you simply meant to be helpful, and as I said, I appreciate it. I'm not trying to start a debate with you, I'm just throwing those thoughts out there for anyone that'd like to pick them up : )
That's the gist of the issue. I personally don't consider "not losing" a reward in itself. Get punished or get rewarded by... not being punished? That's a terrible system for a PvP. Who would anyone enjoy taking part in that? Masochists?
So, in essence, there is a way to exploit the game to avoid corruption and still gank someone? In that case, I could just run away to an area with no monsters, couldn't I? The issue of "simply not fighting back being a better option" would remain.
So, again, not fighting back still remains the better option? I mean, even if you're equivalent in level, it still means corruption for the other player if you don't fight back, which they definitely don't want to have, considering they will have to die too to remove it. If I were to run the risk of losing progression upon dying, I'd always go for the most viable option: simply not fighting back, where the risks of actually dying are significantly lower. Fighting back? Either you lose, and even winning makes you a walking purple target where the risks of getting attacked and lose at some point are drastically increased.
Maybe, but with the whole "paper-rock-scissor" class system, if I'm paper, it's most likely that scissors will attack me first, and I'll most likely lose, even if I managed to land an early cc, unless I'm particularly good.
I don't think another player's intentions are that clear, and even if they were, would I just preemptive strike them? You just said I'd lose the first cc which isn't good, and I would become instantly purple, which isn't goo either.
Are there really safe zones? I was under the impression there weren't any.
My point exactly^^ Why run the risk of going purple yourself if you're likely to be killed by someone else even if you manage to win? Better stay green and pray the other guy doesn't wanna go red.
--Once again, I appreciate everyone's hinsight, so please don't take offense if I argue back. I'm just really bummed because, while I didn't mind having open pvp at all times, my enthusiasm really took a dive when I learned open-world PvP offers nothing but punishments for engaging in it, and to realize my progression would be slowed down and possibly set back upon dying for little to no tangible reasons. I remain convinced this is a terrible idea that won't profit the PvP aspect of this game in any way, shape, or form. I also find the corruption system theoretically quite convoluted and flawed, but I'm no MMORPG dev.--
I can't answer in full details since it's already quite late where I live, and part of your points have already been adressed in my previous post.
I just want to say: I don't mind the ability to PK all that much, which is what most of your answer is about. I actually quite like PvP, as it provides an incentive to become stronger and better. My main issue is losing stuff upon death, which brings nothing to the table and just encourages you not to fight back (assuming, once again, that the corruption system is a good enough deterrent).
Also want to add that, afaik, AoC only allows you to lose your red state by dying, sometimes several times over, before going back to green. No quests or the like, and simply being red raises the possibility of losing gear.
If a player attacks you, you have 3 choices.
The first choice is the most obvious one if you don't have a huge desire to keep farming that location. You can just relocate or maybe even stop playing if you're done for the day.
Second choice is fine if you have a friend around who can immediately attack the red player and punish him, and get your stuff back. Or if you believe you can return there yourself and kill the PKer. Otherwise you'll just lose 1.5h of progress and just hope that the PKer gets his punishment, even though that would not influence your life in any way.
Third option is the best one if you want to keep farming that location, while also minimizing your potential losses. And you might even gain smth, if the attacker had anything of worth on him.
The scare of "I'm not flagged for 90 seconds" only works if there's someone else around that can attack you. But if there were people around before the attacker made his move - you could run to them for help killing the attacker. And if you see that they're not willing to help, you still have the first choice.
And if you dislike the sheer fact of death penalties (which you appear to do), well - this game might not be for you.
corruption in the alpha was pretty much no deterant since there character were gonna be deleted soon anyway and anything that had on them wasnt a real loss, your gonna see more pvp in test phases especialy in short ones. Alpha 2 you probaly see a bit at the beginning then it drop off and pick up again near the end when chars bout to be deleted due to end of testing. Beta tests you probaly see a decent amount too since there short test cycles.
What i expect you will see on a live version of the game is alot of the world there be very little PvP, there be some pockets or fairly frequent pvp though around the nodes pvp guilds have set up, but i think most pvp you will end up seeing is in the ocean, Guild/node wars and caravans. Red will be rather bad especialy when you start dropping your equiped gear and if there not wearing good gear good chances are you can probaly squash them anyway especialy with the dampening effects from corruption
red is a great deterrent considering all the risks. most people wont pk left and right. you will mostly get pked if you start annoying someone and trying to farm in the spot they are already in. just go to another spot or fight.
there is. you have the bounty hunter system.
you also have chat channels. you can just yell "pk at xxx area" and nearby people will start looking for him.
i believe there are still adjusting that. we might or might not lose more items than in alpha 1. also, consider that you might get more valuable items later. imo you shouldnt lose a lot, but it should still sting. this is to deter people from doing pve griefing, suicide attacks etc.
there are other systems in place to deter this, added to the items drop. also consider that reds will drop 4x what greens drop + gear
what about it? thats the game. you also have the chance to kill someone else for a farming spot. so it works in your favor as well. why are you only looking at one side of the coin? we also didnt have the full map and full node systems in a1.
and you also have the option to be near other people. in fact, having more people in an area will probably be better than being in a completely isolated area if your concer is being pked.
also, since low level mats will be very useful for everybody throughout the game, you will be safer gathering lower level mats since no low level can beat u in a fight and no high level will be stupid enough to pk you.
you can also gain progression by killing others...? its not nonsensical, it goes well with their deisgn philosophies.
also, if your main concern is progression, then what about a game where you cant kill other players but everywhere you want to gather or kill mobs is swarmed by other players? at least ashes gives you the option to get a spot for yourself.
so if you are alone in an area you could kill 100 mobs per hour, or gather 100 herbs per hour, or get 100 exp per hour, but since the area is swarmed, you will only get 10 herbs per hour, or 10 mobs per hour or 10 exp per hour. arent you losing progression? or at least not gaining it?
so pvers are ok progressing really slow, but as long its not because of dying everything is ok? and as many people will say, these games are marathons, no sprints.
your reward is that you get some loot, plus the farming spot. most ow pvp will be for farming spots. see the point above.
there are systems in place, such as the stat dampening system and more, to prevent people killing others over and over for no reason other than...killing them.
its not an exploit.
also, what about someone trying to mob drop you and kill you without gaining corruption (or kill you in a pve server). aoc gives you the option to attack them and get them low enough that the mobs they are pulling will him instead before he gets to you. isnt the system working in your favor this way? again, you are only looking at one side of the coin of "what if i get attacked".
or maybe get good at pvp and kill them? thats the better option. not fighting back is viable if there are people nearby or if you are in an area where the other player cant cleanse the corruption. see my point where i recommended gathering low level mats. but if you are in a remote area, with no people around, if someone wants you dead, they will go red. so in that case you either run or fight him. why are oyu anti fighting him?
what if you are paper, and the enemy is rock? again one side of the coin lol. also, if you are good and the oppnent is bad (also gear will matter to a degree) you can be paper and beat scissor...
going purple first can be good, or can be bad. if you plan on killing someone hitting them a few times is your best bet...otherwise, hitting them once and waiting will most likely get u cced and then u lose the bit of damage you did. but we have to wait for alpha 2 and see all the classes. your strategy will depend on what class you play vs what class you are against.
seeing someone intentions will help you decide wether to run or hit them first. we also have to consider that not all skills have the same range. for instance, you might have a pwoerful ability but it doesnt have as high a range as your regular nukes, so if you see someone running to you ready to attack you, you can decide wether to get close to him while he is casting and use ur pwoerful ability, or run away.
this was common in l2. for example, some mages could silence (and it lasted for like a whole min lmao) but it only had 600 range, while damage skills had 900 range. so if you knew some mage was gonna hit you, just walk to him and start spamming silence, and as soon as his nuke go off, they turn purple and u silence and win. the alternative was to stay at max range and hit, but they had the first hit advantage. (sure there were other factors, such as crit, casting speed etc, but you get the idea)
this is the design of the game. risk vs reward. you decide when you want to attack or not. also dying as purple > dying as green, because the penalty and the drops are halved. so, again, it depends on the situation
i think you need to be more familiar with the systems, read the wiki, etc. i believe you just watched some videos from a youtuber, and while i udnerstand they are just trying ot make money, they provide inacurate or incomplete information and drive curious players like you away.
i recommend waiting for the alphas/betas or release. try the game 1 month to see wether you like it or not. and also, the wiki is better source of info than all these youtubers lmao
PvP encounter happens, possible outcomes:
1)Run away and be slowed in your progression (if you manage to run, that is)
2)be defeated and lose progression, while the other guy gains corruption, all of that for what? A few materials?
3)Be defeated and, well... lose less, or win, gain a few materials and a target on your back with the purple tag.
Do you see what I mean? I can't see a single positive out of this stemming from this encounter, except for gaining a few materials that tautau said in their previous post were "not particularly significant". Isn't that a huge flaw in the game design?
That's why I'm pushing for a reward system, rather than a loss system.
I'm sorry, but that's just too easy of a rebutal to do. "The game might just not be for you". Sure, if you could give me a legit reason that would warrant losing stuff upon death, rather than "increasing the risk factor" of PvP, without really making it any more worth it for anyone to partake in it. You run the risk of driving any casual player away from the game with such practices. By casual, I mean people who play less than 3 hours per day, so the majority of players. Why would I even sink any time in a game where I risk having a negative progression if I'm unlucky?
True. I hadn't taken into account the fact that the game was early on and most people wouldn't care about corruption. Still, one way or another, the issue remains: either it's a good deterrent, and anti-PvP practices such as not fighting back would prove the best solution, or it's not a great deterrent, and the issue is quite obvious in this case.
I also agree with the "very little PvP in the world", for the reasons I stated above. I mean, I don't see why I would engage with any player seeing they could either run away, make me go red if not fighting back, or I could be defeated and lose far more than I could ever win (as stated above, a few insignificant materials for a win, or lose the same + xp and all that jazz in case of a loss). Then again, very little PvP seems like the result of a huge design flaw in a game that advertises the PvP as an inherent part of the gameplay.
And Steven knows that his design won't appeal to everyone. At this point it's this game's motto: "it's not for everyone". You took a wrong turn around a node and agroed a strong mob or a roaming boss? You die and suffer penalties. The next time you run around the world, you'll have to be more careful.
The same applies to pvp too. You gotta be aware of your surroundings, the players in those surroundings and then weigh your options against your goals.
I know that the "it's not for you" line is easily countered, but that's just the design of the game and there's a fair bit of people who prefer it over the current trends of "your death doesn't mean anything. you can die as much as you want and never be set back by it". Intrepid knows that the amount of those people is way smaller than the amount of casual players, but Steven seems to be fine with that (at least currently).
If you never carry resources or refined materials, you might be safe and never lose anything.
Your problem starts when you pickup something in the wild and you want to say those are yours.
Are always yours? Did you got a permit to harvest?
I want the game to introduce harvesting permits which you have to obtain by paying a fee to the nearby node, and only then you should be able to say you are a lawful gatherer and entitled to those resources you picked up.
you are still not seeing the big picture. you are only seeing the system in isolation, not how it interacts with other systems.
2 of the design pillars of aoc are player agency and risk vs reward. you dont do open world pvp just for a few materials, you do it to have access to certain things, such as the best farming spot, boss drops, prevent people from farming everything in your node and triggering the surveying system, etc.
players can decide wether to cooperate or fight for something. it creates alliances and wars (also the war system is not explained here yet).
there wotn be little pvp, there will be a lot of pvp, and it will be mostly parties fighting over a spot against another parties. the game isnt balanced around 1v1 and there are systems in place to deter pointless pk over and over.
when people tell you the game isnt for you, well, you might not be the target audience of the game, you are just an added bonus. there are lots of players who are ok with the system. if you dont play the game, then another person will occupy your spot. why does the game need to change to cater to what isnt their target audience? why are people with your playstyle more important than the rest?
if you play less than 3 hours a day, what are you going to do when you cant farm or gather because the area is full of players farming everything (in a game with no open world pvp). arent you wasting your play time as well? probably the best solution for you is one of those solo mmorpg
There are, of course, exceptions. A few jerks will stick around and always be a danger. However, at the time of game release there may be 1 player in 40 who actively PK. Four weeks out it will be 1 player in 150. A year after game release it will be one player in 500. Those estimates are based on my years playing Lineage 2. At first PKers were quite frustrating, then less so, then eventually almost a non-issue.
Regarding the value of dropped items. Assuming one makes regular trips to town to put things in your warehouse, the loss from drops might cost you 5-15 minutes of gathering. While that is a bother, it is a minor one. Quite often I would go back to the spot of my death and recover what I dropped. Sometimes I would randomly find stacks of things other players dropped, thus offsetting my losses.
Regarding the loss of progress from death, probably at least 4 out of 5 of my deaths in Alpha-1 were from mobs, not PKers. Yes, the loss was frustrating. But the main impact of the loss was to make me pay attention and become better so as to avoid the deaths. In other words, the loss was a major motivator to play the game better and to become better at managing my character - a good thing (at least for me).
Thanks for your comments above, a pleasure talking with you!
No. The people that killed you gets mats. Or mats and corruption.
Plus even dying against mobs you get penalties. So it's just the same.
And there should be penalties for dying.
With the current system, deaths aren't made more meaningful, they're made more annoying. On the contrary, character progression is made less meaningful, since you can lose it by a stroke of bad luck.
Why not add a feature that per x amount of mobs killed (from your level or above), you get an extra % of loot dropped and xp, up to a certain %. But as soon as you get killed, that % drops back to 0? It adds a proper reward (because I still don't think not getting punished is a reward in itself), and makes avoiding deaths more meaningful.
Steven does seem to be fine with a game that isn't for everyone, and that in itself I am fine with as well. But he also stated he's aiming at 1 mio players at launch, and to create a healthy PvP environment. With the current system, I don't really see this happening. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
(Thanks for the answer!)
Well, I'm not the only one missing the big picture. Once again, I don't mind the ability to pk, or to be able to attack anyone, nor the risk vs reward. Actually, I welcome most of the stuff you've listed above. I'm against losing stuff upon death, which I see as a plague, not a boon, to the PvP (and the game as a whole). All the things you have mentioned are doable without losses upon death, aren't they?
"Just an added bonus" Well, let me answer your as "just an added bonus" then. Take my arguments with a grain of salt, as I am apparently just a trophy player it would seem. Seriously, why do people feel the need to try and picture others as "just a margin" with them being part of the "lots of player" to give more weight to their opinion, but without anything to back it up?
Right back at you, buddy. Why is your opinion more important? I've laid out my arguments, explained my point of view and why the loss upon death system adds nothing to the table, and is actually an anti-PvP mechanic.
Not like I'm trying to have anyone cater to me just because.
Sigh... I am not against slowed-down progression because of exterior factors, it happens in every other game. I am against negative progression: the risk of losing what you've worked for which adds nothing to the game.
The game has death penalties, caravan attacks, node sieges, item decay and potential destruction, owpvp, supposedly hardcore pve, ffa pvp open seas where your ships can get destroyed and also guild wars that can go on for days with potentially hundreds if not thousands of deaths - literally all of those are "negative progression" mechanics. And the game is build around all of those mechanics and has them all interconnected, so the current design would have to drastically change if Intrepid suddenly decided to move away from negative progress.
This game definitely isn't for you.
The risk of losing progression is a huge draw, it makes you fearful of the danger of the world youre in. It's a big dangerous world. It shouldn't be like wow where nothing happens.
You should be going into combat feeling nervous, getting the shakes when youre down to that last 20% health and contemplating running off or staying the course you've set in the hope you triumph. And then feeling elation when you do. A true achievement for overcoming something that could have caused hours of progression gone if you had lost.
thats my point, my opinion isnt more important than yours, or vice versa. look, there are systems that i dont like. i also dont wanna lose stuff when i die and i wanna be able to kill those who annoy me without any consequence. but as part of the overall design, i see how these systems adhere to the design philosophies and are actually good. you gotta feel the sting of death, even if its a little. this goes hand in hand with the risk vs reward philosophy.
the system isnt an anti pvp mechanic. you have to see the big picture. look at today stream about land management. if you didnt lose anything upon death you could just go to someone elses land or whatever and take everything, then ruin their land. you get all the rewards but not the risk. if you wanna ruin someone elses land, so oyu dont ruin yours overgathering, then there should also be a risk, not just a reward, and that risk is dying to the land owners and losing the stuff you collected. you will probably still fk up his land a lil bit but atleast you wont be keeping all the rewards. on the other hand, you can defend your land as well.
progressing slow vs losing stuff. at the end of the day what matters ishow much progress per hour you make, because we all have limited time. if you ather 100 herbs in 1 hour and you die and now u respawn with just 75, then u sell those 75, isnt it the same as only being able to gather 75 in the first place, since the area was already infested with other players? the current system also allows you to gain progression faster, because you might find materials on the ground from players who died to mobs, or you might win pvp and get stuff as well.
i still think you are only looking at the negatives, or the risk, not the positives or the rewards.
I don't understand how caravans, node sieges, guild wars, open world pvp, hardcore pve or guild wars are negative progress? Penalties don't apply to caravans, node sieges and guild wars, and the rest are features. I can agree with item decay and destruction (although I should hope destruction can be easily prevented). Open seas? Yes, but that is a feature that can be easily avoided completely by not engaging in it. It is but a feature among many, many others. Losses upon dying is present everywhere without, imo, a tangible justification for it.
The incentive to get better? The thrill of the fight? All of those can already be felt without the loss upon death system.
Thanks for the answer!
Achievement, elation, nervouseness, all of those can be easily felt without the risk of a punishment, no? I played a lot of PvP back in the days, and I always felt like that even after 100s of hours in battlefields. Deaths sucked enough for me not wanting to repeat the experience, but weren't overly frustrating to the point of making me want to quit.
I think that anyone feeling like what you've described above would still feel it the same if there were no penalties for losing. As I said multiple times, wouldn't a reward for winning be a better incentive than a punishment for losing? Right now, the risks of engaging in a PvP encounter far outweigh the rewards.
Btw, I think the main issue with WoW PvP is that the comabt gameplay itself sucks. If AoC goes the GW2 way for combat (which I believe is an excellent idea), it will shine a lot more. GW2's PvP was, and I believe still is pretty popular within the game. Haven't played it in 10 years though, because of the lack of endgame back in the days.
A failed node siege leads to the loss of citizenship (which is pretty much a money investment) and some portion of your goods because your freehold will get raided and the node bank will get emptied too if you had anything there. And to get another citizenship will cost you way more, because by that point the housing prices would've grown above what you paid for your first citizenship.
Guild wars are an ffa pvp for the enemy guild against you. They see you - they kill you. You suffer death penalties multiple multiple times, even if they're just purple ones.
OWPVP is literally the stuff we're discussing and as you said yourself - it leads to negative progress.
Hardcore pve means that you'll die more often than against easy mobs. Which means death penalties which means negative progress.
Open seas provide huge rewards (as restated by Steven on today's stream), so by not participating in that content you're limiting your progress. And while it's not quite as negative as other examples, it's, in function, the same as running away from a pvp on land. Instead of progressing further you decide to avoid any interaction with the risky content.
The tangible justification is "risk vs reward". Steven wants the world to feel dangerous and for that danger to have consequences. If all you do is win win win no matter what - that ain't risk and that definitely ain't danger. And as we've stated multiple times already, it's fine if you dislike this design, you're just not the target audience for it.
dammit man, i didnt wanna tell him. now he wont play for sure.
We haven't had any confirmation regarding lower mana/health and lower mob drop rates if you die as a green in a long time, I would not be surprised if this has been removed.
Who said the attacker cares about the consequences of gaining corruption? What if you only need to kill 10 mobs to lose the corruption from killing one green player?
As an attacker, if you decide to attack a green, you should be ready to turn red in case they don't fight back. Also, if you decide to attack a green, you must have a reason to kill them if you're smart: they have been farming for hours, they have a good spot, you hate them, etc. Therefore you want them dead regardless of gaining corruption or not.
As a green victim, it's an easy decision: do you have a lot of loot?
The PvP "winner" gets a portion of the dead guy's resources, I guess you forgot that part. The PvP "winner" gets to farm the area the dead guy was farming before, honest mistake.
Unfortunately, if you believe "1) and 2) are pretty heavy flaws" or if you believe that people fighting for resources is not "healthy open world PvP ", you're a PvE player, which is fine. If I had to bet, you've never played a game where you lose stuff if you die. And, if you have, you probably quit that game or avoided the areas where there was loot on death.
The game will try to discourage unhealthy PvP such as griefing low level players, spawn/corpse camping, etc. Will it work? I don't know, but they're trying.
Respectfully, you're wrong. Losing things makes you think about your actions. Losing things makes you value what you have. Losing things makes for memorable experiences. What's an unhealthy PvP environment for you is healthy for me. You can't speak for collectives, in this case casual players. I'm a casual player, I'll have maybe 20 hours per week to play and I want this game to be a challenge, not another FFXIV.
Cheers
-Node siege: this one's a bummer, but I really don't have enough info to give a proper opinion about it. How often can they be challenged? How hard are they to defend? How important is storage there?
-Guild wars: "Death penalties (mostly) do not apply to objective-based events (such as caravans, guild wars, and node sieges" as per the wiki, but maybe there's something I'm missing?
-OWPVP, Hardcore PVE: Yeah, they're basically exactly what I meant by losses upon death being not a good system imo. They're fine and punishing enough as they are, why add the extra hassle?
It would seem that most objective-based events don't get a death penalty (wiki), so that's good. More incentive to play.
As for caravans or ships, you're not forced into the content. You said it yourself, you can weigh risk and rewards before going in, which I can totally get behind.
Losses upon death are forced upon you at all times. You go into the world where you're basically always at risk whether you want it or not through PvX, and the only reward for not dying is to be able to... play normally as in any MMORPG?
In "play normally", I also mean fighting for resources and other stuff, as is expected in OWPvP.
Yes, the game's still in alpha, so most of what we're discussing in this forum is based on speculations.
As for the mod drop rate etc... I'm referring to the wiki. If this had been removed, wouldn't it have been removed there as well? Unless they'll be announcing it later. Hopefully, you're right.
The whole point of corruption is to be a great enough deterrent for any potential griefer from ever wanting to turn red. If it isn't, then the system is a failure.
-They have been farming for hours: so they kill the green player, turn red, pick up their loot, then what? They're red, a walking target among walking target. There's definitely no guarantee they'll make it back home safely. And they're also at risk of losing far more than they've gained by turning red.
-They have a good spot: once again, turning red near "a good spot" does seem like a death sentence in the making.
-You hate them: now that's an entirely different matter. Soothe your anger by killing them, then same scenario as mentioned above. Get red, high risk of being killed, and lose a lot.
In a risk vs reward game, none of them seem like they'll yield good enough rewards to be worth the risk. That's why I'm saying don't fight back because turning red for your corpse usually isn't worth the risk.
I have mentioned about resources in other comments, but I don't blame you for not looking through all of them. Afaik, they're pretty insignificant according to Alpha-1 players, so probably not worth the risk (not that I'm advocating to lose more of your stuff).
I am a PvP player. Why do people always assume that I'm not? I've never said I was against PvP, quite the contrary. For me, PvE content is only a stepping stone for the PvP content. Get better gear to get better in PvP. That's why I care about it feeling good.
Yes, I've always avoided games where you lose stuff on death. I've never seen the appeal of negative progression as a punishment for a core feature of any RPG - death.
It generates frustration and disbelief that's usually bigger than the relief of not losing anything. By generating more negative feelings than positive, that's what, imo, makesthis system unhealthy. Not griefers, etc... For that, I trust the corruption aspect of the game.
Losing things makes you think about your actions: you don't do it normally?
Losing things makes you value what you have: you don't do it normally?
Losing things makes for memorable experience: you don't have them normally?
I say unhealthy because it generates a ton of negative feelings from losing stuff, with the only advantages of having the positive feelings mentioned above slightly enhanced by the potential loss. Positive feelings that, let's be honest, would be present either way if the game turns out good.
You want a challenge? Tell me, how is losing stuff a challenge? It isn't challenging to lose stuff, is it? Who said that if there wasn't any loss upon death, then the game would be less challenging? Souls game are considered challenging, but you don't lose anything upon dying, do you? You make a game challenging through increased difficulty, complicated boss mechanics, etc... not by making it so that you lose the stuff you've worked for.
I just want to make clear of two things:
1) I want the game to thrive
2) I enjoy PvP a lot, and don’t mind open-world PvP
My main gripe is with the mechanic of death penalties through loss of experience, stat dampening, reduced loot drops from monsters, losing some of your resources, etc… which, from my perspective, doesn’t add enough to the game to be justified.
The reasons I got from other people to support it are:
1) It makes sense within the Risk vs Rewards core gameplay of the game.
However, all I see is:
Risk: losing a bunch of your hard-earned progression + hampering your progression even further
Reward: not dying? A bunch of resources? The privilege to farm a certain spot? Most of them can be acquired through open-world pvp, without having to add the risk of losing anything.
2) It enhances the thrill of PvP and PvE through the fear of potential death penalties and loss of resources.
Maybe it enhances the thrill, but it doesn’t create it. I highly doubt anyone would be left unable to feel anything from PvP or PvE if they didn’t run the risk of losing their stuff/xp/etc…
3) It makes you care for what you’re carrying
My point is about the same as above. You may care for it more, but most would still care if they didn’t risk losing it. Also, this argument only takes into account potential resource loss, not the rest.
4) It is an incentive to get better
This is, in my opinion, a non-issue. Most people don’t need the fear of punishment to want to get better. The potential rewards for it are usually more than enough.
Now, the main part, the reason why I’m being so annoying with this opinion of mine: I want the game to thrive, because it made me genuinely care for it until learning of the death penalties severely lowered my enthusiasm.
Sure, you can always say “it’s not for you”, “you’re not the targeted audience”, etc…, but that argument might just keep pushing people away indefinitely until the target audience is reduced to a smaller playerbase unable to support the financial needs of the game. Having a clear vision is nice, but knowing when to compromise is too.
Making the game into an open-world PvP will make it niche, but death penalties will further make it a niche within a niche. Maybe you think the playerbase within said niche is big enough to support the game, and maybe you’re right. But what if you’re not?
It might just be me, but I have a feeling that death penalties will discourage far more people than they will attract them, particularly among the more casual playerbase. Arguably, I’m no expert, and the closer example to AoC’s death penalties concept I can find is Mortal Online 2, which can hardly be compared to AoC. Still, its highest player count ever never went above 10k concurrent players. AoC will of course far exceed those numbers, but by how much, and for how long?
That’s why I’ve been advocating against death penalties in this thread. Sure, it will hamper the fun of some people, but will it really make the game that much worse? Will fans really stop playing if it isn’t implemented? Will it really jeopardize the core concept of the game? I can’t say for sure, but my guess would be no.
Would it, as a result, make the game less niche and attract more players that would otherwise be turned off by it? Again, a wild guess, but probably.
A necessary compromise in my opinion, but I am obviously biased on this issue.
Is it just my opinion? Yes.
Is my argumentation mainly made of speculations? Of course.
Will we only know once the game launches? Absolutely.
Still, this is a forum meant to share, and I’m doing just that. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t care about the game or simply wanted it to fail. Maybe someone, somewhere, will find it an interesting enough read.
PS: Apologies for this text being terribly written. It is currently 4 AM, my brain is really foggy, and English isn't my first language.
And as for Souls games, you do lose souls (or their alternatives). And I don't know about other gamers, but my adrenalin always spiked when I could lose my souls after a very long session of successful kills w/o depositing my souls.
Now in Souls games it's a staggered death, meaning that your first death is not as impactful because you can come back and pick up your souls, but that "come back" is the true challenge now. If you farmed a ton of souls after several hours of playing in a flow state, you would have obviously died to either a strong mob or just in a tricky location. So now you need to overcome that heightened difficulty in order to not lose several hours of progress.
And that situation heightens the stakes to their maximum state. But at the opposite end of stake values is the post-double-failure state. A place where you've lost all your souls and you now got literally nothing to lose. There's no adrenalin (or at least way less of it), no risk but way more risk taking. You're now free to do much more dumb shit than you were able to do during your "come back" run.
And some people prefer that heightened amount of adrenaline when they play games. But as you've said, we just have differing views on this and the only thing that can prove either of use wrong or right is the game coming out. But until then we can't really do much outside of presenting our opinions and feedback to Intrepid. You've presented yours and a few of us presented counter arguments to it, so now it's on Intrepid to deicide which one they gonna go with (probably both throughout the testing phase).