Let's remove the defenders completely from the discussion here please. Defenders are NPCs for this conversation, and #npclivesdontmatter. They take some risk for a potential greater reward. That works as intended and is fine. So please ignore the defenders completely other than considering them above average AI NPCs.
In a risk vs. reward game system we need to have a tangible measurable risk to get a tangible measurable reward. Can we all agree that that is what is meant by this? We need gold/materials/XP debt/item repair or at least a lot of time on the line if people expect a substantial gold/materials/XP reward.
Social and political risk/dislike between players is something the game is incapable of knowing anything about, and no ingame risk vs. reward system can take it into account in any meaningful way. The social and political aspects are meta-level gameplay loops that are important, but completely self-contained in the risk vs. reward sense.
Otherwise I'd happily stand in a node and insult everyone for hours while the XP, gold and epic gear keeps raining down on me. Whether I insult someone's mother, destroy a node, attack a caravan or war-dec a guild, someone won't like it and the result is the same; they'll try to kill me, my guild, my node, and take my stuff.
Caravan PvP has no buy-in cost for the attackers. In all the other objective-based PvP systems we are going to see an initial buy-in cost most likely. Certainly for node and castle sieges (gold/mats). Probably for declaring guild wars too, and also most likely for declaring node wars. So far caravan PvP stands out as having no buy-in cost. That is not a problem either, but it is something to bear in mind, because normal death penalties don't apply to any of these systems.
So focusing only on the attackers, what tangible rewards should they get for what tangible risk, when it comes to caravans? My take:
- If the attackers risk losing highwayman points when failing an attack, I think it's fair if they gain roughly the same amount of points if they succeed. Maybe slightly more. Without a potential loss of highwayman points, they shouldn't get any points just for destroying the caravan.
- To cover item repair costs and a small bonus for their time, I think the black market value of goods from opened crates should cover that aspect. Again, if they succeed.
- For rewards better than covering the basic costs in terms of item repair and highwayman points, the attackers need to spawn their own caravan and bring all the unopened crates to a node. This causes the attackers to become the new defenders/NPCs, and as we know from above: #npclivesdontmatter. But they also get a substantial material/monetary and highwayman point reward should they succeed.
Thoughts?
