So, about Bounty Hunters + contesting World Bosses + Corruption.

How exactly do BHs have anything to do with PKers dying? Group A would just assist hit the PKer once and he'll drop. BHs have nothing to do with that.

Also, if your PKers dying is a problem to you - you're doing it wrong. You simply hire a dude to come and PK your opponent's healer - that's it.

Also, Ashes will have visible hp values. If you know for sure that group A won't flag back up against you - just keep hitting them to keep them at ~half hp and overburden their healers, so that they fail the boss. And if your group can't do that - tough luck, skill issue.

On a separate note, I'm vehemently against pvp zones on bosses. There's guild wars, node wars, enemy of the state feature and ideally mob manipulation - all of which are way better to address the boss contest design. Intrepid should tweak any of those to make it easier to contest bosses, rather than simply dumb it down to the point of "the zerg always wins".

NoCarebears wrote: »

@StevenSharif

Imagine this:

A group of 20 people (group A) DPSing a World Boss vs another group of 20 people (group b) also DPSing the boss, both parties have the same DPS.

Whoever deals more damage gets the precious loot. Group A got there 30 seconds first... does that mean they get a free boss? Apparently it does. This is because of the Bounty Hunter system and I'll explain why.

Everyone who has played any open World PvP game with a flagging system knows very well when there's Bosses to be contested, people will go red/Corrupted. Why? Because when you're a situation where 2 parties have basically the same DPS, then whoever got there first did more DPS, and thefore keeps the loot. It's that simple. And the only option for group b (cause they got there 30 seconds later) is to PK Group A's healer+tank or they lose the boss. That's what contesting means. "Contesting" isn't a DPS race, it's fighting for it.

So, it is the smart thing to do as a BH, to go near World Bosses. for the reason I just explained. Just makes sense right? You have the chance to catch somebody Corrupted easier and especially if there's more of you.

Problem is: if there's 10 BHs waiting to jump the first person who goes Corrupted, then group b is completely fucked no matter what. They either lose the boss cause they got there 30 seconds later or they go Corrupted and risk getting gangbanged by BOTH the BHs + Group A. Where's the "contesting" here? It doesn't exist.

If you don't see this is a MASSIVE problem, then you've never played a PvP game in your entire life. Intrepid need to think this through. It literally fucks with the whole idea of contesting bosses. Steven should 100% be very aware that PKing is NEEDED when contesting world bosses. So something needs to change regarding Bounty Hunters. Options that come to mind are:

A) Intrepid change World Boss areas into a PvP Zones when there's more than one party. This would mean everybody who wants to fight for the boss is auto-flagged and there's ACTUAL contesting without forcing players to make a choice that will end in getting destroyed by 2 different parties

or

b) Make Bounty Hunters perma flagged when they're near a World Boss. This would give Group B a chance to engage the BHs and if they win, they have a chance to risk PKing Group A and get the boss loot.

Right now, the Corruption system + BHs completely fuck with contesting bosses (so at that point you're basically forcing players to camp World Bosses). Let's just live ingame right on the exact location where a world boss spawns, cause whoever gets there first has a 90% chance of getting the loot unless their DPS is terrible. It's pretty terrible like this.

Clearly there's a problem and I hope people who understand open World PVP dynamics see it. IMO it's very important as if it's not fixed, then nobody will want to ever go Corrupted when contesting Bosses. It just turns the whole thing into a DPS war which sucks, it's boring and there's no actual contesting of anything.

how is this different from a third group, lets say group c, simply getting there and waiting? they don't have to be bounty hunters. so nope, not a massive problem.

you know what group b should do ?wait until the boss is almost dead then pk group a and get the boss. if there are bh nearby, kill them too. make sure everyone in group b has lowered their pk count. you can also have designated pkers with easy to replace gear in case someone drops something.

also, as far as i know, bounty hunters will go purple when attacking a pk, and stat dampening wont be applied to the pk, so you can freely dispatch the bhs...

edit: you played l2, you know how people camped epics before they spawned, and that was fun. part of getting the boss is killing it before the competition arrives. so when you say people need to live next to the boss, etc...so what? the more dedicated players will get the stuff. make your alt cameras ;3

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Depraved wrote: »

also, as far as i know, bounty hunters will go purple when attacking a pk, and stat dampening wont be applied to the pk, so you can freely dispatch the bhs...

Nah, the flag is only against the corrupted bois.

NoCarebears wrote: »

Try reading my post again, you clearly missed the point.

Yes, the point is that your PKer will die to someone. That someone could be literally anyone and not just BHs.

NoCarebears wrote: »

I'm going to hire a random guy with better gear than me (because if he isn't well geared, he isn't killing anyone) to risk his gear for somebody else's group... right. That makes a lot of sense. I'm sure there's 1 player out of 10000 that would take the risk.

And one crit and your "overburdening healers" turns into Corruption and then you have that whole party + 10 Bounty Hunters on you. "Skill issue", lmao. You literally just reinforced my point about how absurd it would be to have an army of BHs waiting for somebody to go Corrupted.

Ahhh, right, "1 crit" can suddenly kill a whole healer, but you need a "better geared dude than you" to PK someone

Skill issue it is, got it.

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Azherae

I don't think it is just a DPS race because I expect bosses to be better than that.

I also don't believe that DPS races just suck in a game where that DPS is skill related, and I still view it as contesting if it is.

This probably isn't any help since it's just me 'disagreeing with your base concern', but data gotta data.

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NoCarebears wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

you know what group b should do ?wait until the boss is almost dead then pk group a and get the boss. if there are bh nearby, kill them too.

Of course I thought about it, I did that for an entire decade in Lineage II, but HERE in AoC, with that many players killed, that leads to PVP dampening, which is why I suggested PvP zones for World Bosses or that BHs are autoflagged when near that area. You can't just rely on PKing 30 people every time you're going to fight a World Boss, it's ridiculous when considering the amount of punishment for Corruption in AoC.

a third group can do the same thing, even if there arent bounty hunters. a flagged pvp area gives a massive disadvantage to those who camped the boss and arrived first. you are punishing their effort for no reason, just because you got there late. camp the boss like you did with epics :P

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NoCarebears wrote: »

I'm just ignoring you from now on, I hate when people pretend they don't see the bigger picture just because they're okay with a PK getting killed.

Funny that you yourself don't see the big picture of "literally fucking anyone can just stand there and wait for someone to become a PKer". And then this threat is simply solved by "a hobo ranger in the most basic gear shooting group A's healer from max range until that crit happens and the healer dies. Then group B kills him and loots whatever might've dropped".

You say you played L2 for a decade but you never used this incredibly basic strat? Cause I used archers, rogues, mages - whoeverthelivingfuck in L2 and easily accomplished the goal of sabotaging the opponent's farm.

You know what happened to my PK char afterwards? The group A killed him in seconds, because that's what happens to any PKers. You know what L2 didn't have? BHs. What a surprise, you don't need "10 BHs" to kill a PKer, who just murdered your healer.

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NoCarebears wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

a flagged pvp area gives a massive disadvantage to those who camped the boss and arrived first. you are punishing their effort for no reason, just because you got there late. camp the boss like you did with epics :P

I don't understand this way of thinking. You want to reward the people who sat on their ass waiting for a spawn instead of a party willing to take risks and make better decisions on the spot while fighting the boss.

Why should ANYONE be rewarded just because they run to an area first? It's such a weird take. It's a game about CONTESTING bosses, not calling dibs on them. I don't understand this logic. You really want to make it about who has more time to waste to be there 5 days afk waiting for a boss to spawn? Seriously?...

they didn't run into an area first. they had alts as cameras. you had guys taking turns not playing their mains and checking for the boss, then when the boss entered a respawn windows, people would stop doing what they were doing and progressing, and just go there. they could have been doing other things, but they arent. they are sacrificing progression while everybody else is progressing. then you also have the organization to have everyone in a party, ready, etc, etc.

your logic is that we shouldn't reward people for getting there early,b ut instead you want to reward people for getting there late. wait what? imagine getting rewarded for being late at work xD anyways, why should the people who got there late should be rewarded instead? logic goes both ways. there isn't a single reason why the group who got there late should be rewarded instead.

anyways, imagine your group gets there late, you kill the first group, you are doing the boss, but guess what? now a third group comes and kills you. your group is already flagged because they are already in the PVP zone. the third group who got there even later than everybody is getting the advantage, and they will probably have to spend less time fighting the boss, since it would be almost dead. they probably wont even need to have what it takes to kill the boss, they can simply take it from you after you did all the work. is it fair?

it only seems to me that you don't wanna make the effort of camping bosses, and just arrive there late and take it from someone else.

NoCarebears wrote: »

The difference is that a random player doesn't have a fucking GPS tracker on my ass to follow me and my party everywhere (DUH) if we go Corrupted. Are you pretending? Bounty Hunters are basically cheat codes vs Corrupted players. Of course there's a massive difference. The risk is 10x bigger if its a party of BHs than a regular party, they can just chase us, INFINITELY.

So these theoretical BHs know the boss you're about to contest. Sit there waiting for you to contest it. Are prepared for you to become a PKer...

BUT CAN'T FUCKING KILL YOU ON THE SPOT?!

NiKr wrote: »

NoCarebears wrote: »

The difference is that a random player doesn't have a fucking GPS tracker on my ass to follow me and my party everywhere (DUH) if we go Corrupted. Are you pretending? Bounty Hunters are basically cheat codes vs Corrupted players. Of course there's a massive difference. The risk is 10x bigger if its a party of BHs than a regular party, they can just chase us, INFINITELY.

So these theoretical BHs know the boss you're about to contest. Sit there waiting for you to contest it. Are prepared for you to become a PKer...

BUT CAN'T FUCKING KILL YOU ON THE SPOT?!

yeah everybody will be purple in the solution he is proposing, but somehow group c wont attack his group and wait until he fights group a and heals up and then 1v1 them

Depraved wrote: »

it only seems to me that you don't wanna make the effort of camping bosses, and just arrive there late and take it from someone else.

I don't think they've played L2 where it had pvp zones on bosses. Cause I have and I know that it's always a zergfest, because that's the most optimal way to kill a boss in a pvp zone.

OP came up with the most unrealistic situation to try and argue against a good system and is now crying about counterarguments that critique his insanely niche theoretical situation

And he called ME a kid

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Depraved wrote: »

yeah everybody will be purple in the solution he is proposing, but somehow group c wont attack his group and wait until he fights group a and heals up and then 1v1 them

None of their arguments make any sense. Prepared BHs are somehow not killing the PKers. The PKers are somehow running away at the speed of light from the boss that they're meant to kill, cause that was the point of the PKing. No one else but BHs can kill PKers, in a situation where this 3rd party literally knew the boss and the time when the contest between groups would happen.

None of that is even near to being logical