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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How hard do you think it should be to get rid of corruption?
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
First, please read https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_corruption. The overall philosophy is summed up by this: There is no incentive to go corrupt... There's zero incentive for a player to go red. It actually gives you negatives for doing that- very significant downsides. – Steven Sharif
Based on a post by @NiKr here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/449170#Comment_449170
It dawned on me that we have VERY, VERY different ideas of how hard it should be to get rid of corruption.
Using Nikr's numbers at face value, that's 7 mobs that take six seconds each to get rid of corruption, or 42 seconds + time between pulls. He later clarified with this, which is less insane to me: 
My Take
I would like to see it based on death penalty XP debt amount, and then modified by the PK value of the player, and of course the level difference of the killer and the target.
The death penalties for corrupted players are 4x that of a non-combatant, and based on the 3-4% xp debt given to a non-combatant upon death, it sounds reasonable to me that you need 4x 3-4% XP of any given level to grind away your corruption before any other modifiers. I'll just round it to 15% for the sake of simplicity.
The only quick way to get rid of corruption should be from dying. 1 death is fine for the first kill on an equal levelled player with 0 PK value. That gives around the target 15% xp in the form of debt. Adding in a high PK value and ganking a lower level player, it should require 2, 3 or even more deaths to get rid of corruption, with 15% xp debt accrued each time of course.
Another important factor to remember is the bounty hunting system. Corruption has to last long enough that Bounty Hunters have time to see you on the world map and get there in time with some friends, and we don't have much fast travel in the game.
So how long does 15% xp translate to? It'll depend on the level, but if we go with the 225 hour to max level goal that Intrepid has put out, that's 4.5 hours per level, or around 40 minutes for 15% XP. With the usual levelling speed curve we see in MMORPGs, that's probably a minute at lvl 1 and an hour or more of grinding XP at level 50.
Edit: And of course we have to test it, but the 15% XP is a good starter I think. Maybe we end up with 10% as a more fair target. We'll see.
Based on a post by @NiKr here: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/449170#Comment_449170
True, but it could be one 10-12s mob that removes 30/100 corruption instead of two 6s mobs that each remove 15/100.
It dawned on me that we have VERY, VERY different ideas of how hard it should be to get rid of corruption.
Using Nikr's numbers at face value, that's 7 mobs that take six seconds each to get rid of corruption, or 42 seconds + time between pulls. He later clarified with this, which is less insane to me: My preferred balancing for corruption gain/removal is "if your first PK was on an equally-leveled opponent deep in a dungeon - removing it should take just a bit longer than it would take that person to come back to that location"
And it would go somewhat exponentially upwards from there.
My Take
I would like to see it based on death penalty XP debt amount, and then modified by the PK value of the player, and of course the level difference of the killer and the target.
The death penalties for corrupted players are 4x that of a non-combatant, and based on the 3-4% xp debt given to a non-combatant upon death, it sounds reasonable to me that you need 4x 3-4% XP of any given level to grind away your corruption before any other modifiers. I'll just round it to 15% for the sake of simplicity.
The only quick way to get rid of corruption should be from dying. 1 death is fine for the first kill on an equal levelled player with 0 PK value. That gives around the target 15% xp in the form of debt. Adding in a high PK value and ganking a lower level player, it should require 2, 3 or even more deaths to get rid of corruption, with 15% xp debt accrued each time of course.
Another important factor to remember is the bounty hunting system. Corruption has to last long enough that Bounty Hunters have time to see you on the world map and get there in time with some friends, and we don't have much fast travel in the game.
So how long does 15% xp translate to? It'll depend on the level, but if we go with the 225 hour to max level goal that Intrepid has put out, that's 4.5 hours per level, or around 40 minutes for 15% XP. With the usual levelling speed curve we see in MMORPGs, that's probably a minute at lvl 1 and an hour or more of grinding XP at level 50.
Edit: And of course we have to test it, but the 15% XP is a good starter I think. Maybe we end up with 10% as a more fair target. We'll see.
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Comments
Which means that 15% at lvl50 would potentially means several hours of grind. I wanna be a BH and hunt those reds, but at that kind of a timer I fear there'd simply be no reds to hunt.
I'm totally fine if this kind of timer is something you get on your 5++ PK, but this does seem a bit too extreme for the first few kills, especially if they're against an equally lvled opponent.
I understand the logic behind this kind of balancing, but unless top lvl mobs give us a shitton of xp, I'm not sure if the system would even support having PKers.
If the time is the same, this just encourages people to game the system with help from friends or alt accounts, working essentially the same punishment off in a safer manner.
If we go by that 15% of a level, less for lower levels, more for higher levels, then I would much rather work off my penalty as debt rather than corruption.
On the other hand, if corruption is a third of the experience to work off as experience debt is, I'd probably risk taking that path with a third of the time to work it off.
Right, I wouldn't want it to take multiple hours for the first kill either, so definitely balance the numbers for that. And like Nooani is suggesting, I think it's fine to incentivize working off the XP rather than taking the death. Not one third of the time, I think that's too easy, but lower than xp debt amount is fine. Like the 10% I mentioned, or around 2/3rds.
I think the amount of corruption gained should also be based on how far from “civilization” you are. More corruption the closer you are to the node settlement as well as what type of settlement.
The intention is to set a niche for bandit PCs and therefore supports that niche for bounty hunter PCs. That also sets up other player behaviors where they feel “safer” near large settlements and therefore may be more willing to transport valuables, making PK in those areas high risk/high reward. On the outskirts and in the wild, players are incentivized to group to offset the dangers there as well as the bandit/killer PCs. It also incentivizes bounties in those areas. So other players are definitely part of the formula for getting it right.
That’s why I believe you can’t just have set of arbitrary rules on that balance. It’s more or less a market that has to factor player behavior. Also as soon a a player or group discover a way to “game” or “cheat” that system, the system factors that, making it less effective over time (or very quickly). And on the other end, if no players are participating in that banditry role, then risk/reward balance needs to change to correct that. Some of that is also driven by player behavior as mentioned in the “feeling safe” example.
Why do we need this? Because until they get AI to simulate the behavior of other players, AI PVE is going to be limited. Some want their mobs or bosses to be predictable in order to farm. That makes it a game that players think they can “win”. If the AI ramps up to the level of a human player or human players play those roles, then it’s less predictable and not as easy to exploit for resources. More player skill might come into play. I think between these two extremes is where the corrupt PC and Bounty Hunter have their niche. And that might be what makes this PVX rather than pure PVE or pure PVP. It’s the Reese’s to everyone’s chocolate or peanut butter. And if you only like Snickers then be more social.
Hard corruption is gained by outright assault and murder. That’s pretty much what they are setting up.
Soft corruption is gained by the social acts of robbery, pick pocketing, cons and other such criminal behaviors that is more subtle that the kill-them-and-take-their-stuff model. That includes a group on the road demanding resources via the threat of force (downside is the victims know and may pursue justice). Soft corruption would also be hidden until revealed and carry no penalties other than social penalties like being banned from a node’s services or being sought out by bounty hunters, providing another layer of gameplay for that role. Soft corruption should go away much more slowly over time and would be visible only in the node or nodes of influence. So you do a crime in a single node settlement and are discovered, then you are visible only in that node. Although bounties from the node can be collected from far and wide. The hunt part of bounty hunter. Do crime and get discovered in a Metropolis, then your name is going to be known far and wide.
This also sets up another social system for justice. Soft corruption could be “paid” down either by payment of fines or providing services for that settlement’s magistrate. Making that role more interesting. Could also allow for criminal enterprise or corruption of that government, AKA crime boss. Although guilds can manage the same thing, but without making soft corruption go down for their associates. To accommodate the role of corrupt magistrate, simply allow the amount of soft corruption to transfer to the magistrate should they not require the price of justice for the town or decide to take that for themselves. Seems government tends to attract the most corruption.
The effort needed to wipe the corruption, I think, ought to increase with the number of player PKs. If the PK count is quite low (0, 1, 2) then 15-20 minutes of vigorous hunting ought to be enough. But once it gets up to 4 or 5, it ought to take an hour or more to cleanse oneself. Someone who PKs regularly, who gets a PK count 10+, I would be fine if they had to spend so many hours after each kill that the toon essentially becomes unplayable.
Not very hard. Rather easy especially when You have "Friends" who can murder the Corruption out of You when you gathered some. (lol)
Why ?
Because i wish for Bountyhunters to have something to do -> and that a "BOUNTY" is not automatically cancelled the Moment a Player might not be corrupted anymore.
Like :
EVEN IF - you have Friends - who can murder You one or a few Times to get Corruption out of You, after you ganked and playerkilled some PvE-farming People who mined some Ore's or chopped down some Trees,
-> if Players who know about your daily Misdeeds and Killings put a Bounty on You -> it shouldn't vanish. It should only vanish after "Bounty-Hunters" murdered You one or a few times. x'D
And of Course meaning they get some special kind of (PvE ??) Reward for killing You while being Bounty-Hunters and not just some random People coming around.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
My reason for thinking 1/3 should be where it sits is that if I am spending 45 minutes or so to work off the debt, dropping that to only 30 minutes isn't going to be worth the added risk to me, if I have an option to take that 30 minutes without the risk.
To me, the absolute minimum point where it becomes viable to accept that risk is if the time is halved - or more precisely, if the time to work off the experience debt is twice the time it takes to work off the corruption that caused that debt.
Even at 1/2, I can still see most people opting for the safer route when it is available to them. It isn't until you shift to 1/3 that I can see the bulk of people (still not everyone that has the option) opting to work off corruption rather than debt.
Obviously this only applies to people and in situations where there is this option, but we all know this option will be present a lot of the time.
I understand there's a BH system but it should rely on the BH being close, not literally giving the BH 1 hour to reach you. Otherwise, why even allow PKing at that point? There's so many punishments for PKing already, we don't need any more.
How often do you believe the average player will get corruption? How often do you believe you will get corruption?
Once in a blue moon? Once in a while? Every few game sessions? Every game sessions? Multiple time during a game session? Is there even a goal rate?
I ask because I'm under the impression people have very different expectations about this and it might explain, in part, why the time to purge are so different.
Someone who's just solo farming in a good spot and doesn't want anyone else to farm that spot might PK if they don't have a high PK count already and if they can't win the competition through pve.
Some guilds will PK their competition's healers before/during raids, to get an upperhand in the fight (that is if the victims don't just fight back).
And depending on how wars are designed, we could see KoS orders being resolved through PKing rather than war-type pvp.
There'll also be some loot hunters, who'll stalk high lvl gatherers in hopes of getting their loot. But the PKing part would depend on the victim, rather than the attacker.
All in all I think PKing will be quite rare (at least relatively speaking), especially if Intrepid do somehow manage to not have mob grind in their game. Cause majority of PKing that I've seen in L2 happened around great farming spots, and those rely on mob grind being in the game. So if there's no mob grind, PKing will be even rarer than how rare I already think it'll be due to higher penalties than what L2 had.
Though all of this is pure speculation based on a game with a different overall design and from ~10 years ago. People keep telling me that players have changed and that all my assumptions are completely wrong, so we'll have to see how the system works in practice.
Please tell me how many open world PVP games you've played. Cause this kind of arguement always comes from somebody who never played one. NOBODY can "spend their days PKing" because thats an absurd amount of corruption. They WILL get dropped and instantly lose all their gear and after that, they can't even PK lvl 1s. Also, in my L2 experience, people who are more likely to PK are always well known and smart clans will usually keep an eye out for that and the moment he goes red, they have people on him (cause he's basically a free walking loot piñata).
You need to understand that saying things like that just makes it seem like anyone can "grief" forever and ever and nobody can do anything about it, and that's just not the case. Even in L2 that wasn't the case. Just seems like a bad faith comment.
I really hope dying isn't the optimal way to remove corruption.
You don't need good gear to PK people. You don't need a strong character to PK people. You don't need your main to PK people, though for those who only want to PK - they don't care about their main.
In other words, you make a bit of money, stock up on the cheapest possible gear and just travel the lands PKing as many people as you can until your stats gets dampened to a point where you no longer can do that.
My main feedback for the corruption system has been "make the PK count account-wide and make the PK count removal methods - the biggest penalty of the system". Right now we don't know how fast your stats will get dampened, or how much it costs (money/time-wise) to reduce your PK count back to 0, but even if my suggestions are implemented and the costs are high - there will still be people who're completely fine with that (Azherae and her group are one such example).
This is simply the reality of games with owpvp. I'm no saying that this will be how every damn person in the game behaves. I'm simply saying that there will be people who behave this way. And quite literally in the comment you quoted I said
https://muonline.wiki/knowledge-base/pk-system/
Interesting. There are some similarities too
Mob TTK?
The process of cleansing karma and resetting PK counts involved significant time investments and coupled with the risk of losing valuable gear. This backdrop set the stage for players to carefully weigh their decisions before engaging in PK activities, considering the time, effort, and potential consequences involved. It really had to be sanctioned by your guild too as you and your guild bore the consequences of the pk.
To give measure to the questions of time discussed in earlier posts, there were two parts to cleaning corruption .
A ) Karma Cleansing Time:
B ) PK Count Clearing :
- Required quest
- Took 30-45 minutes to complete
- Reduced 1-5 pk`s each time completed
- Sometimes had to do multiple times before back to zero.
- Could not do the quest while still holding karma (red)
Total Time for Karma and PK Clearing:What might the guild sanction for pk`ing?:
Strategic Considerations for cleansing karma:
In retrospect, the decision to engage in PK activities within the L2 world was not merely a matter of personal vendetta or spur-of-the-moment action. It was a carefully calculated decision of risk and very political, considering the time and inconvenience costs involved in karma cleansing and PK count resetting. Each move carried significant risks, from potential gear loss to prolonged downtime, xp downtime, shaping a strategic landscape where every action demanded thoughtful consideration and planning.
I wonder if the Ashes model will end up being implemented similar!
Sounds like your experience in L2 was quite different.
Towards the end of my time in L2, a top guild established a splinter guild comprising only a select few players. This micro guild turned on their original guild and all others on the server.. they were at end game and sought fights only (well it appeared that way).. The small guild consisted of the server`s most elite PvP'ers, boasting the highest levels and the most substantial in-game wealth.
They approached their conflicts in a distinct manner, as very few guilds could offer them a fair fight. Just one wars or straight up pk`ing.
Their setup appears to mirror what AoC (presumably Ashes of Creation) is proposing: guilds that couldn't compete on equal footing often opted out of confrontation entirely, so they resorting instead to PK'ing and frequently becoming red players.
Despite this they tactical skill and high level gear left little threat.. and left them unbeatable.
But they created drama and focus on the server and made the server all the more interesting!
And having watched it, I find it real fucking funny that in a game where we drop a ton of shit on death (at least right now) we somehow also have "no incentive to kill a green". The question was mostly about potential incentive to simply flag up, but Steven went out of his way to make clear that "there are no incentives to become red", when that is simply nowhere near true.
I dunno how AA's player deaths worked and if you could loot the corpse and get something, but I feel like Steven's mind is still stuck in L2's design of this system, rather than AoC's. Cause in L2 there was in fact no incentive, outside of the vague "this is my spot and I'll kill you for it" argument.
And don't even get me started on the lower corruption gain for killing a mule, who has way more items on it, so your reward for killing it is higher while the risk is literally lower.
Really wish we didn't drop anything on death...
I think you have to understand that quote in the context of there being no upside to going red if you can war-dec the other guy instead, or kill them while both of you are flagged for whatever loot they are carrying. So yeah, by going corrupt you can get their loot, but you can't access storage to deposit it, or trade with anyone. You are stuck with the loot until you grind away the corruption. Or you can die and leave a fraction of it on the corpse for a friend or yourself by running back, if you're lucky.
All the people worrying about being ganked by solo gankers while out gathering, I really think that it's going to be rare. Groups might, and the non-corrupt player would loot the corpse, while the sacrificial corrupted player looks for the next victim. I think it really has to be valuable stuff for it to be worth it though. Like epic mats or better.
As for the mule, they apparently only carry small crates, so the ganker has to break out their own mule to carry it to town, or break it open and get a small percentage. Players can't carry crates at all.
And so far we haven't heard anything about loot locking or anything of the sort, where only the killer can pick stuff up, so what you said will most likely be the exact way people go about PKing others.
And there would be more PKs, because a random gatherer wouldn't flag up against 2+ people, cause they'd know that they'll die for sure. I do hope that the ttk is high enough and the "runaway" tools are good enough that it's difficult to PK a running person even if you have several people attacking, but we've already gone in the opposite direction with the ttk, so there's that.
True, and we'll have to see how often mules are even used, for what exact purposes and what kind of benefit could a PKer (group) get out of them. I guess the PKers won't be a problem for mules if mules are never even used, but that'd be a whole different issue then
I really wish Intrepid would go away from killing blow deciding corruption, to the entire group that helped with the kill getting corruption. We know there is going to be a toggle in the settings where you don't get autoflagged if a party member flags up. You just can't help that party member, and none of your spells or abilities affect them.
Yeah, you can still work around it by having a designated looter outside the group or just with that setting turned on, but it's less of an advantage.
Edit: and a short loot lock would make sense too, but it should be pretty short I think.
This takes less than a minute to execute and has no downside for the group (well, outside of reputation of course).
I've been saying from the start, the "group gets corruption" will never work because it's avoidable by the simplest of actions and coordination (which is the point of playing in a group). And the "who contributed" also doesn't work, because you don't need many people to PK someone. Hell, considering the current ttk it takes half a fucking ranger
Can't wait till we get to pvp testing, cause oooooooh boi I'm gonna kill everyone test it so hard.
I would still rather have it than not.
it varied alot throughout the versions of the game, starting quite harsh(specially on lower levels as it was quantity of exp based, something like 500 exp per 1 karma point on the first versions of the game) on lower levels(~lv15) taking something like ~12min~24min killing monsters 1x hp(on your level and giving ~500 exp)to remove your first PK karma(~240 karma)(something like ~3s~6s to kill each x1 hp monster requiring you to kill ~240 1x hp monster on your level 15 to remove it), dying would remove around ~240 karma points.
Karma scaling was something like 240 + 120(50%) per PK point(against same level enemies or higher level enemies), 240 +180(75%) (against enemies 4-8 levels lower) and 240+240(%100) (against enemies 9 levels or lower)
Example: Your first 3 PKs on players on you level without removing any points =
(240 + 360 + 480 or 1080 total karma points)
Considering the karma points being removed based on pure exp gained, higher level players that could take on higher level monsters which provided way more pure exp than lv15 character killing lv 15 monster which provided ~500 exp would remove their karma way faster(lv52 1x hp monsters for example give around ~5k exp)
For Ashes of Creation currently, i expect your first PK(In any level, against someone within your level range) to take about 50-100 average solo monsters within your level range(with ~6sec TTK each about ~5-10 min) killed to fully remove all of your corruption points(but not your pk count).
Not completely sure how Ashes will handle the PK count Corruption scaling but expecting it to be harsher than L2 you can see how going on a Killing spree or having a murder historic on your back can get out of hand and set you back for quite a nice amount of time.
Aren't we all sinners?
Unless that happened in a low population private server where it's a free for all, then I don't believe you.
Never saw that in nearly a decade of official L2. The few times I saw a guy on a PK rampage, it was always the same, he gets chased by someone with better gear, killed and then every single person in the server knows he's a PK char, and he just gets tailed everywhere and he can't do it anymore. So, nope, that's just hard to believe. Mass corrupted player = loot piñata. If you aren't tailing someone like that, then you must hate free loot.
Players in AA never dropped anything on death{other than TradePacks[Basically Commodities that you could carry(as an individualized item) on your back(usually for trade runs)]}.
Aren't we all sinners?
Also, you can still continue killing people even if you're being hunted. It just takes a bit longer to go through the cycle. And with how huge Ashes will be, I'd expect it to be even easier to do, even though L2 had TPs in it.